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{
"id": 176812,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/176812/?format=api",
"text_counter": 260,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Mututho",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 97,
"legal_name": "John Michael Njenga Mututho",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to thank Eng. Maina most sincerely for moving this Motion at this appropriate time. The Bill that will arise from this Motion should not worry the Government. It will just be telling the Government to do its job. The Government must do what it has been elected to do. The writing is on the wall: \"This House is for the welfare of society and just Government of men.\" This Government is doing some winchy-winchy economics. They wake up one morning and decide to increase the price of maize from Kshs1,300 per bag to Kshs1,700 per bag. That is 33 per cent increment. They do not follow any known rules relating to supply and demand. They just woke up one morning and did that, triggering a spiral effect that led to all this confusion. This Government is in charge of the strategic grain reserves. Managing 300-400 million bags is just like managing an armoury. It is controlled by four Permanent Secretaries. There are trustees. They do not tell us whether they were sleeping or they were not seeing the stocks dwindling, until we had a shortage of maize. This Government now tells the public that they are importing maize at Kshs3,000 per bag, which it wants to sell to the National Cereals and Produce Board (NC&PB) at Kshs1,300 per bag. That is a subsidy in itself, which is calculated to hurt the economy even more. This Government has the audacity to announce that it will flood the market again, in order to stabilise the price, by introducing 5 million bags of maize. They need to go back to school or resign! All these measures will hurt the common man. Even at very remote levels, anybody can see. December 03, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3819 Kenyans are talking. They are saying, they can only afford maize meal at Kshs40 per two- kilogram packet. What the Government needs to do to enable the millers to produce maize flour at Kshs40 per kilogramme is to enable them buy maize at an almost impossible price of Kshs900- 1,200 per bag. That is where we are now. What is the inflated price? Mismanagement by the Government led to this escalation of maize prices to between Kshs2,200-2,400 per bag, which is now stabilizing at Kshs2,200 per bag. This Government should take a pen and a calculator. Instead of importing 5 million bags of maize and spending Kshs15 billion of hard earned money, it should compensate the millers on the difference between Kshs950 per bag and Kshs1,200 per bag. That way, they will be able to import another 12 million bags, instead of buying 5 million bags and stocking them with the NC&PB. That is the money which they have. That way, we will have unga in the shelves at Kshs40 per two-kilogramme packet. That is the money they have. You will then have unga on the shelves at Kshs40. This is not rocket science! We are saying that when the maize was selling at Kshs2,400 a bag, a packet of unga was going for Kshs120. It is the Government's mistake! We are here to check you out! We are here to tell you that you are wrong and that you are mortgaging us by allowing cartels in the energy sector to continue enjoying those high prices. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Government has allowed cartels to run their operations at the Port of Mombasa. They have now forced the prices of cereals and fertilizers to escalate. A bag of fertiliser is now going for about Kshs6,500 per bag. The farmers have been forced to produce at a high cost. That is why we cannot support the Government to import five million bags of maize that will end up flooding our market. We cannot allow that to happen when the farmers have bought fertilizer at Kshs6,500 per bag. We need to be rational on this aspect. To be rational is simply to take a calculator and work out what the miller needs to be compensated directly. If the Government cannot do that, then it has no business talking about regulations. When the USA economy was bursting because of the events in the Wall Street, the Government moved in. That is the regulatory function of the Government. Any government should be in charge. This Government should have come in yesterday. It has made us go without three meals. This means that most Kenyan workers, today, are moving around with their stomachs half- empty and yet they are expected to run heavy machinery. They are now moving around with their families who are yearning for food just because the Government cannot do simple economics! This is a matter this House needs to address very fast. We need to make this Government function. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if the banking sector is experiencing some trouble, the CBK must step in. If insecurity is getting into the nerves of Kenyans, the Government must step in to save Kenyans. If we do not have unga on our shelves, this Government has the instruments and mechanisms to control the situation. Price control is just one of the measures at their disposal. Other measures include checking movement of commodities; arranging suitable financing and removing bottlenecks that we have in the area of transport. We have thousands and thousands of police officers who man road blocks on our highways. They delay the delivery of vegetables from Kinangop to Nairobi. One has to go through 40 or 50 road blocks. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, you heard it yesterday, when an hon. Member stood up and, with complete lack of decency, admitted that the vegetables we eat come from a sewer line somewhere. It was said in this House yesterday. Why? This is because this same Government has put police officers to patrol our highways so that Kinangop farmers who are producing good quality vegetables cannot get their produce to the market. These are the regulatory measures that this Government must afford our people. The Government must put people at the centre of everything and not bloated cartels. Even if we allowed the millers to import the maize, there are a handful people who can 3820 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES December 03, 2008 afford to do the importation. They will come again and control the net price and the price of a packet of maize flour will not be below Kshs40. In fact, ideally, it should be Kshs35. That way, even a watchman will be in a position to have uji in the morning and a bit of ugali in the evening. We should think about that worker who walks from Kibera to Industrial Area on an empty stomach. We worsen the situation by stating here that even sukumawiki will have to come from the sewage. What kind of Government is this? We must have serious people in the Government. That is why they are paid. That is why they have offices and officers working under them. They have technicians working for them. They must take control and regulate this mess. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, another problem is sugar. The commodity is now handled by sugar barons. The people of Mumias who have been growing sugar-cane have been forgotten. It is as if life only matters to the cartels created by sugar lords. These problems can be addressed. On the story about irrigation, the Government knows there is plenty of land in North Eastern Province. An hon. Member rose and asked a Question as to whether the Government could consider putting one million acres in North Eastern Province under production. Of course, the Government does not want to do that. That is a regulatory measure. You need to ensure that products get into our kitchens, and then life goes on. You have a bloated bill in the Ministry of Health because sick people require very good food. If you cannot feed your nation, then you have to pay the price. You have to pay the price by way of medical bills or very many bright Kenyans dying. Even HIV/AIDS, with good feeding, can be controlled. That is the nerve centre of this Government. If this Government cannot feed its people, then it has no business governing. It is supposed to just step aside and allow the people to elect another Government. People are saying that they are hungry."
}