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{
    "id": 236960,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/236960/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 241,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Prof. Anyang'-Nyong'o",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 193,
        "legal_name": "Peter Anyang' Nyong'o",
        "slug": "peter-nyongo"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, I beg to contribute to this Motion. However, I 3300 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES November 1, 2006 want to say one thing. The issue of squatters and land arises because of underdevelopment. If you see what the squatters are doing on the land, you will find that it is absolutely unproductive work. Those people are compelled to squat on that land precisely because of lack of development. If the economy was growing at 10 per cent or 20 per cent per annum, those squatters would have sought work in more productive enterprises. I would rather call upon this Government to have progressive agricultural and industrialization policies which will turn land into a productive asset. Today, agriculture in this country is a charity enterprise. My family has been owning 100 acres which my brother looks after in Miwani since 1975. I have never got a single cent from the money I put into that land, precisely because the agricultural policy is hopeless. The only regime which attempted a progressive agricultural policy in this country was the Kenyatta regime. That was between 1963 and 1973. The agricultural policy in this country has been retrogressive after those first ten years. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, you know that agriculture is subsidised in all the capitalist societies, namely; Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States of America (USA), Germany, France and Japan. This is because it is extremely difficult to capitalise agriculture. Ever since the industrial revolution, the high organic composition of capital in industry has made it very difficult for agriculture to operate on its own without being subsidised. This is because individual entrepreneurs in agriculture do not have enough capital to compete with the more efficient industries which they depend on for inputs. This basic lesson has never been learned by the Kenyan Government. We speak as underdeveloped people when we talk about irrelevant things such as squatters. With this kind of underdeveloped mind, you cannot solve a basic problem. If you go to the Coast, you will find the squatters who are squatting on land because they are the wrenched of the earth. They have nowhere to go. The issue to handle first is to have a good agricultural policy which will tell you how to use land. However, you cannot start the other way round; solving the problem of squatters. You will never solve the problem of squatters if you do not have a proper agricultural policy. We are dancing on top of the pen everyday, talking about squatters and land. Even if you are allocated that land today, you will go to the bank, borrow money, fail to service the loan, the land is repossessed by the same bank, it is put under receivership, the receivers receive money from the same bank, taxes go high, we subsidise the receivers and the banks, thus underdeveloping all of us, you continue complaining and remain poor. Why can we not address the problem from its root cause? That is the agricultural policy."
}