Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 181223,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/181223/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 105,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Oparanya",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister of State for Planing, National Development and Vision 2030",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 201,
        "legal_name": "Wycliffe Ambetsa Oparanya",
        "slug": "wycliffe-oparanya"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to reply. (a) Globally, the prices of key food commodities, particularly maize, rice and wheat, which are the main staple foods in many countries including Kenya, have risen tremendously in the last two years. This has happened because of both external and internal factors. The external factors which are beyond our control are:- (i) Increase in world oil prices. At the moment, oil prices have been increasing for the last three years. At the moment, the price of crude oil is at US$72 per barrel and locally, petrol and diesel prices are mainly close to Kshs100 per litre. This is obviously because oil is used for transportation, manufacturing and power generation. That has made the prices to go up. (ii) The strengthening of the US Dollar due to some external factors like the financial crisis that we are having. (iii) The increasing use of agro-fuels. The increase in oil prices has led to a search for alternative sources of energy such as bio-fuel made from grains. The conversion of food products into bio-gas fuel has reduced the amount of food coming into the world market, leading to higher food prices. Climate change in the world has affected countries like Australia and Bangladesh which produce a lot of wheat and because of that, these countries are forced to import wheat. Of course, this is also due to increased demand for food generally due to increase in population in China and India. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, internally, why we have had high increase in food prices is because of the inadequate infrastructure that we have in our country. This has the effect of affecting our production and, therefore, the prices. Change of weather has also led to the high prices. In 2005/2006, we had crop failure due to drought. Also increase of population in Kenya has led to this situation. The population has been increasing at 2.7 per cent and this has not been matched by increase in production. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, post-election violence which happened early this year has also affected us because it affected agriculture, tourism, manufacturing and transport. It also led to the displacement of farmers and farm labourers leading to delayed farm production. (b) The Government has taken the following measures:- (1) It has zero-rated VAT on basic food commodities which include wheat, milk and maize flour. (2) The Ministry of Agriculture has also initiated measures to make fertiliser available to the farmers at affordable prices. It has also made seeds accessible to farmers. The same has happened to credit. (3) The Government has allocated, in this financial year's Budget, Kshs65 billion to finance new construction, rehabilitation and routine maintenance of various roads. (4) The Government has undertaken to reduce some of the costs on energy by removing October 30, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3175 VAT so that energy, like electricity, is affordable. (5) There are other few social target measures that have been outlined in our medium-term plans which include school feeding programme, voucher system in five poorest districts and waiver systems in the health sector. All these are meant to address the needs of the poor."
}