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{
    "id": 175451,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/175451/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 235,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Mungatana",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Medical Services",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 185,
        "legal_name": "Danson Buya Mungatana",
        "slug": "danson-mungatana"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I rise to respond on behalf of the Government on this Motion that seeks to reintroduce price controls to essential food commodities such as maize flour, sugar, rice, cooking fat and milk. I would like to state that there is a reason for intervention as far as the Government is concerned. Under the leadership of the Prime Minister, there has been intervention by the Government on one essential commodity, which is maize flour. This is not to state that there is a complete shift of the Government policy to control prices of sugar, rice, cooking fat, milk and other essential commodities. Even as we debate this Motion, the Government knows that the people we need to take care of, apart from the consumers, are the producers. I would like to persuade the House to consider this. If we set the price of sugar today and the farmer in Western and Coast provinces and Kitale expects to make a certain profit, what are we doing to him or her? If we control the prices of rice, cooking fat and milk, what are we telling the farmer, who is the producer? I would like to inform the House that there is, indeed, a case for intervention and subsidy, and the Government has shown direction under the leadership of the Prime Minister and the Minister for Agriculture. However, the general thinking is that we should work hard to increase production so that we can have enough food to drive the prices to manageable levels. We do not want farmers, for example, livestock farmers to feel strangled by the prices the Government fixes to their end products. Let us think together as Kenyans. There are those of us who are engaged in tertiary activities and have to buy unga from the market. There are also those who rear cattle and need the milk to be purchased at a good price in order for them to survive. There are also those farmers who need rice to be purchased at a good price in order for them to survive. Let us think together and agree that when there is an emergency, as has been the case for a while now, the Government needs to come up with intervention measures. However, as a rule---"
}