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"speaker_name": "Mr. Masanya",
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"legal_name": "Godfrey Okeri Masanya",
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"content": "Thank you very much, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to say a few things about His Excellency the President's Address to this House. I want to join my colleagues in thanking the President so much for establishing the Women Enterprise Fund. If you go to many of our constituencies today, you will find our women running up and down looking for some resources with which to assist their families. Women are the bread earners of many families in our country. So, the establishment of the Women Enterprise Fund is very timely. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if the establishment of the Women Enterprise Fund becomes successful, it will assist this country in the distribution of wealth. Today, our wealth is concentrated among very few people. Although the economy is growing, the effects of this growth will never be noticed unless we have initiatives like the Youth Enterprise Fund and the Women Enterprise Fund that is being established. Another group of people I am asking the Government to consider is the small-scale farmers. Although small-scale farmers have been exempted from the provisions of the Co- operative Societies Act and left alone to do their own businesses, many of their factories were put up with a given capacity. For example, many factories were put up with a capacity to process 100,000 kilogrammes. Today, tea growing is uncontrolled, and so tea factories have been overwhelmed by the increased production of the crop. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, today, you will find a factory with a capacity to process 100,000 kilogrammes of tea leaf having to handle about 200,000 kilogrammes. Some factories even handle 300,000 kilogrammes of tea leaf, which is completely in excess of their capacity. The processed tea is subsequently sold in the world market. If a factory produces tea of a lower grade than that required, the farmers are paid very little money. Today, the small-scale farmers are really suffering because they are producing very poor quality tea, which cannot compete in the world market. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Government should consider giving grants to assist these factories to expand. At the same time, it should assist the factories to have the necessary logistics to enable them to transport tea leaves from the collection centres to the factories. Today, because of poor logistics, tea leaves can stay in a given centre for two to three days. By the time the tea leaves are transported from the centres to the factories, they have already gone bad and they produce very poor grades of tea, which cannot compete in the world market. So, although the small-scale farmers were removed from the Co-operative Societies Act, I am asking the Government to chip in and assist them. Many times, I have heard the Minister say that the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) is going to assist farmers to improve tea production. The KTDA does not have anything to give to the farmers. The agency only sells its services to the small-scale farmers. It has no money or materials to give to the farmers. The agency is only hired to give services to the farmers, which the farmers pay for. Therefore, we should not be cheating farmers that one of these days, the KTDA is going to improve its services or give some kind of grants to the small-scale farmers. 192 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES March 28, 2007 Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also want to comment on our secondary education. At the moment, we, hon. Members, are being harassed so much by parents. When we go to our constituencies every morning, we find many parents coming to our homes to ask for some hand- outs because their children have been chased away from school. They want the hon. Members to chip in and assist them. With the kind of money we get, which is being exaggerated all over, we cannot afford to pay school fees for all the children in the constituencies. Even the hon. Members who came in with a lot of money, I want to warn them that they will get out of this House poorer than when they came in. We are like mobile banks. Everywhere you go in your constituency, you are told about problems which can only be solved with money. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, free primary education has produced so many candidates who are to join secondary schools. Some of these students are very bright, but they come from very poor families. The amount of bursary that is offered is peanuts. Today, HIV/AIDS had led to a situation whereby the number of orphans in secondary schools has doubled. One of the schools in my constituency has 97 orphans. If a little amount of money is given as bursary to the schools in my constituency, that school is the only one which will benefit. Since every school has to benefit from this Fund, we end up having so many orphans who are very bright and have passed exams not joining Form One. It is time we thought seriously about offering free secondary school education because we are now having so many students joining Form One as a result of free primary education and most of them come from very poor families. I do not know the kind of calculation that God does because children from very poor families are excelling in school, but their parents cannot afford to pay school fees for them."
}