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"id": 177846,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Mungatana",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Medical Services",
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"id": 185,
"legal_name": "Danson Buya Mungatana",
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"content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I was saying that those NGOs need to learn from other NGOs which are bringing similar issues. They did the same when we were moving the Industrialization Bill in this House. What happened then was that they came to the Minister and to the relevant Departmental Committee and all the matters they raised, the hon. Minister for Industrialization, Mr. Kosgey, took into account. They also came to our Ministry of Medical Services because the issue then in the Industrialization Bill was that the ARVs were going to be made expensive and difficult for the ordinary mwananchi to access. When they came to us, we discussed the matters and raised them with the Minister. They also saw the Minister and he was able to put their concerns into the Bill and the whole issue was sorted out. There is no need for us to worry about this issue. I believe that worrying about issues like those is of no use; they can be sorted out by the same people approaching the Minister and the Committee, because this Bill will go to the relevant Committee of the House, which will be able to discuss it. This is our country and we are building it, not for ourselves but for the future. In the same spirit, we want to urge that the Government and this House to listen. There is need for us to support this modern Bill that will help us move forward from where we are. We need to have this Biosafety Bill. One of the things that we need to agree on as a country is that whenever we have disasters like the current food shortages we always look to our international friends, development partners and other countries which produce excess food. In fact, recently, the Minister for Agriculture made it clear that grain reserves in this country were not sufficient to sustain the situation that we are in. Our consumption, as we speak today, surpasses what we have in the strategic reserves of this country. The obvious thing that is going to happen is that we are going to import food. We will be looking to countries which are already developed. What those countries have been doing is that they have grown a lot of food in their countries, because they have developed laws such as this one. This law has enabled their researchers to come up with seeds that are able to produce enough food and have, therefore, overtaken us in terms of food production. Now we have to go to them, yet we could have done the same thing in this country. 3726 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES November 27, 2008 Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have other countries like India, which is now a huge economy. If you look at the clothes we wear you will that they have a blend of cotton with other products to make them better. The only reason a country like India is able to produce more cotton than we can in this country, or we are able to produce--- It is a tropical country like Kenya, with almost the same climatic conditions like ours. But it has been able to lay down a law such as this one that allows their scientists to develop seeds through research and come out with things that can grow within their tropicalised conditions. So, they have been able to produce more cotton than we can. This is because we are still using the old kind of seeds. We need to agree that time has come for us to embrace technology. For us to embrace this technology, we need to lay a basis, which is this law that we want to pass. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, some people have argued that it is very risky to allow food research in this country. If you look at aeroplanes, or auto mobiles, there are very beautiful shapes coming into the country. We have very nice aeroplanes, like the Boeings and others. The research work that is going on in the automotive and aeronautics industries is more risky than that for food area. What I am saying here is that you are more likely to die from a road accident by your beautiful car or a nice aeroplane than you are likely to die from research oriented foods that are coming into this country. We need to set up a basis for food research and the risk is absolutely minimal. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, regarding research, I have read in the Press that a very respected group of our own lecturers has come together and issued a statement pleading with this House to pass this law, so that they can have a basis for continuation of the research work that they are doing. I believe, with all my heart, that time has come for us, as a Parliament, to accept that change is with us. Technology is with us and we need to accept that in order for us to function appropriately and feed our population that is growing everyday, we need to embrace new forms of technology that will enable us feed our population. Our country should be the first to embrace this technology, because without it we will not be able to feed the population that we have. Even the people who are worried, I am sure, are not worried about whether or not we should feed the population. As the leaders of this country, we need to agree that without technology we cannot feed the population that we have. Therefore, it is my humble plea that we support the Minister with all our hearts. This House should vote for new and modern technology. We should vote for our researchers to have a basis to increase our food productivity in this country. We should vote for our children and our grandchildren to have a basis to do better research than that which is done outside this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, having said all those things, I would like us to look at some of the clauses proposed in this Bill. First of all, I congratulate the Minister because for the first time now, there will be an authority to be established under Clause 5 that will be regulating all manner of things that have to do with biosafety in this country. Right now there is no law that regulates biosafety. So, the benefits for such a law are obvious for all of us to see. Having said that, I would request the Minister to further consider Clause 6, under which he actually proposes to set up a board. We have very many Ministries that will be represented on that board. There will be Permanent Secretaries in those Ministries. Those Permanent Secretaries will, obviously, not be able to sit on this board. I have always wondered if there is not a way in which we can appoint specific people who will be available for purposes of continuity and functioning of an authority like the property. We have sat in many boards in the past, and has been actually impossible to conduct business with people who come today and tomorrow they are not there. When they travel abroad and come back, they appear at the board and then take everybody else backwards. I believe that the Minister should look into this again. Let him Just appoint someone from the Ministry who will be directly November 27, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3727 responsible. Some of the Permanent Secretaries will definitely not be available, and it will make the board waste time. I also want to ask the Minister to be aware that it has now become a tradition of this House, that whenever we are creating boards or authorities, we try to incorporate the principle of gender in the appointments of people to those boards or authorities. Today, we are very happy that the Minister in charge is a lady, but next time it could be someone who will be completely unpersuaded about the question of gender, and the law will allow him to lock out the female gender, which is totally unrepresented in some boards. I would ask that the Minister provides that at least one third of appointees to this authority will be members of either gender. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I like the provision that makes it clear that the proposed authority shall promote awareness and education amongst the general public in matters relating to biosafety. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this is contained in the same Clause 7. I believe this is one the most central issues and things that this Authority must undertake because it is a new law. We would like the Minister to give direction in that area. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I support the fines and penalties that are contained generally in this law. However, in the next Clause 19, there should be heavier penalties. Without tiring Members, because they need to contribute to this Bill, I was going to propose that any fine that will have anything to do with this Authority should be more than Kshs1 million. It should not be less than Kshs1 million because genetically modified organisms can do something that we cannot even imagine of. So, we want a lot of punitive measures that will be taken against people that will go contrary to the provisions of this Act. We want Kenyans to be very well protected. Maybe we should enhance the fine to be beyond Kshs1 million and there should be provisions for these people to be jailed so that any scientist who tries to operate outside the licensing and legal provisions of the Authority and the clearly well regulated research regime in this country, should be punished heavily. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have watched in movies countries engaging in genetic wars against each other and some of these things may happen. We used to watch a lot of movies about a black president in the United States of America (USA) and it has come to happen. So, even these wars that have something to do with genetics and genetic organisms, need to be watched very carefully and we must be prepared against them. So, I propose very heavy penalties. I am sure just like the Departmental Committee on Legal Affairs and Administration did a good job, once this Bill is passed to the Committee, I am sure it will bring better amendments than the ones we are discussing here. I beg to support. Thank you."
}