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"id": 219789,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/219789/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. O.K. Mwangi",
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"speaker": {
"id": 240,
"legal_name": "Onesmus Kihara Mwangi",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. You are very right in that observation. Sometimes, one may become inaudible. I am calling on the Government, particularly on the issue of use of fuel, to come in and subsidise fuel, so that we can save our forests and trees. If we continue this way, what will finally happen is that the costs of tea production will sky-rocket and, at the end of the day, the farmer will not be getting any returns. He will just end up being used like a slave. In my constituency, we sell a lot of tea. However, if you go there, you will find that the people are \"bathing\" in poverty, and you wonder what is happening. It is because of these costs. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) must also be reduced to work as an agency. Right now, the KTDA controls a lot of the revenue that comes from tea, but that revenue does not trickle down to the farmer. So, if we care about the welfare of our people, the Government must come in and invest in factories, roads, water and other aspects concerning tea-growing areas. Another aspect that I want to talk about is banks. The banks that operate in tea-growing areas are reducing our people to paupers. I am sorry to say so. Some people think that is very bad to say so, but that is the truth. The banks give farmers what they call \"advances\". Farmers receive advances from banks upon producing receipts showing that they have delivered their tea to the factories. By the time their tea is paid for, the farmers have nothing to rely on. They have to go to the banks to get more loans, because they cannot take their children to school. Initially, we never used to care about tea farmers when it came to awarding of bursaries to needy students. Today, tea farmers line up to be given bursaries for their children, because all their money has been taken by the banks in advance on the promise that they have delivered their tea to the factories, which is accepted by banks as security. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, another issue I would like to urge the Government to look into is that of value adding to our tea. We have been \"crying\" year in, year out about value adding to our tea. If you go to foreign countries, you will find that our tea sells like gold. However, if you come back to this country, you find that the farmer is just getting peanuts. That leaves you wondering whether we have been created to become slaves to the rest of the world, or what we are doing. We have a Government in place, which can intervene by bringing in investments to value add to our tea, coffee and other crops, so that we can realise the maximum value that is supposed to come from our labour and land. I would also like to urge the Government to help rehabilitate the factories that we have, and build many more new ones. We already have three-and-half factories in my constituency. We require another two factories, so that we can handle the amount of tea that we are growing. We need the Government to come in and help us open up new roads in areas where we have continued to grow tea. The Government should also build bridges. In some cases, we have got to travel long distances, looking for a way out, so that we can deliver our tea to factories for processing. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I saw the Minister here. I would also require him to tell this House what happened to the Kshs1.4 billion that was in the accounts of the KTDA as an authority prior to its transformation into an agency. That was farmers' money. It was not supposed to be used by the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA). It was supposed to go into the pockets of the farmers. We have not heard anything about it to date. So, can the Minister address that issue? I beg to support. May 23, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1541"
}