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{
    "id": 219798,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/219798/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 252,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Muiruri",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Agriculture",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 238,
        "legal_name": "Patrick Kariuki Muiruri",
        "slug": "patrick-muiruri"
    },
    "content": " That is correct, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. The KTDA Act does not exist. The KTDA was formed in 1964 by a Legal Gazette Notice No.44 by the Minister for Agriculture which took over the functions of the Special Crop Development Authority. That is the position. Tea farmers got 100 per cent loan facilities to construct factories. The KTDA would then finance on the conventional leaf basis. These loans were payable over a period of ten years plus a two year grace period. This made it very easy for the tea farmers to repay their loans without a lot of hardships. However, after the privatisation in 2000, the KTDA reviewed this provision and demanded 30 per cent equity from the farmers and 70 per cent as loans. This was a further burden because they went further to reduce the repayment period to eight years. With the rising cost of construction of new factories, a new policy came into place which raised equity participation to 50 per cent, to be contributed by all growers through deductions from tea payments. These payments burdened the factories with huge debts and the repayment period was reduced from six to five years. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in a nutshell, the tea industry is one of the major movers of the country's national economy. However, the KTDA is faced with diverse challenges of over-production, declining prices, high cost of production, poor infrastructure, mismanagement, global competition and they have continued to perform below optimum. Considering that half a million farmers are engaged in this industry, it is a must for the Government to intervene in the industry and address the challenges facing the KTDA. I am the Assistant Minister for Agriculture, but I am also a tea farmer. This problem has come about because we ourselves in the tea industry and Members of COTEPA in the last Parliament, removed Government control over the KTDA to a limited company. In the process, a lot of things have gone wrong in KTDA."
}