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{
"id": 182157,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/182157/?format=api",
"text_counter": 180,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Maj-Gen. Nkaisserry",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister, Ministry of State for Defence",
"speaker": {
"id": 192,
"legal_name": "Joseph Kasaine Ole Nkaissery",
"slug": "joseph-nkaissery"
},
"content": " Thank you Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this very important Vote. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, first of all, I would like to commend the Minister, Assistant Ministers and the entire technocrats of the Ministry for presenting a very workable budget, despite the fact that it is under-funded. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the overall goal of the Ministry is to achieve food security. Achieving food security for our country requires that the Ministry is funded accordingly. When you look at the Ministry's budget in the financial year 2008/2009, it translates to roughly Kshs13.1 billion. To me, for the Ministry to achieve food security, that is an unfair allocation. If we do not achieve food security, we will continue on the dependency syndrome of relief food. There are quite a number of strategies that the Minister put across while presenting the Vote of his Ministry. He alluded to the fact that there is an increase in maize and wheat production. But if the Ministry was given more money, it would have made a great difference. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, according to the Minister, the horticultural sector raises about Kshs65 billion from foreign earnings. If we were able to produce maize, which is the staple food for Kenyans, the amount of money we use to import food would be ploughed back to improve seed quality and expand the acreage of farms under maize, beans and wheat. While I commend the technocrats of the Ministry, I would have expected them to come up with a strategy on how to increase maize, wheat and beans production. These are the staple foods for this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if you take the example of ASAL areas, I think the October 28, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3049 Ministry has not done enough to ensure that those millions of acres can be used to produce these staple foods for Kenyans. We have a problem of climate change. So, we cannot rely very much on the rains. So, the Ministry should have come up with plans for irrigation. They should have come up with plans to put up irrigation schemes. I would like to tell my friend, the Assistant Minister for Agriculture, that we require a demonstration farm, at least, in every constituency. This is where farmers could come to learn how to produce crops in their farms. However, we can only achieve this if we have the resources. As I said, with a budget of Kshs7.8 billion for Recurrent Expenditure and Kshs5.2 billion for Development Expenditure, I do not think the Ministry will be able to achieve the overall goal of food security for this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I think the Ministry requires to be supported. It should at least be funded to a tune of not less than Kshs25 billion. That way, we can demand irrigation, demonstration farms and agricultural training centres (ATCs) in every location. We are not producing enough food because sometimes, we do not have the technology and know-how. Therefore, if these services can be found at the locational level, food production will increase in this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Ministry has gone out of its way to help Kenyans. It has written-off loans to coffee farmers to the tune of Kshs3.2 billion. The Ministry is also planning to write-off loans for sugar-cane farmers to the tune of Kshs42 billion. What is amazing is that the Ministry is not even thinking about writing-off the Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC) loans owed by farmers. However, these loans are not more than Kshs300 million. The Ministry does not have a plan to cushion livestock farmers who took loans through AFC. I would also like to appeal to the Government to consider waiving loans for livestock farmers. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, many years ago, the former regime wrote-off AFC loans. However, the loans were never written-off. The AFC technocrats made sure that the farmers still owed the parastatal those loans and the interest continued to accumulate. Now, they are not able to repay the loans. We have just come out of a drought spell between 2005 and 2006. I would like to say it here without any fear of contradiction that, the farmers will never pay the loans because they do not have the means to pay them. It is, therefore, important for the Ministry to go back to its books and see how it can mitigate this problem. This amount is not more than Kshs300 million. If the Ministry can write-off Kshs3.2 billion and it is also contemplating to write-off Kshs42 billion, why can they not waive the Kshs300 million owed by livestock farmers? I would like to appeal to the Ministry to consider this request. I was requested by my constituents that if I had the opportunity, I should pass this message to the Ministry of Agriculture which is in-charge of AFC. They are not prepared to pay the loans because they do not have the means to pay. Therefore, the only option open is to write-off the loans. How can we write-off these loans? The Ministry needs to look for funds to cushion AFC. We know AFC must survive. So, cushioning AFC will be the best way out of this problem. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to propose to the Ministry that ASAL districts have not been given due consideration on production of food. As I said earlier, if we can have ATCs and machinery in all the constituencies, I think the issue of food production will be improved. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Minister talked of substantial financial resource requirement. However, he has not told us how we could get this to enable the Government to support the Ministry. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}