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{
    "id": 252998,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/252998/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 234,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Wetangula",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 210,
        "legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
        "slug": "moses-wetangula"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I represent cane farmers and if I do not say anything here, it will be very bad. The issue of the sugar industry in this country is so critical that the Minister and the Government has to do something. I will just touch on the issue of taxation. This is how the cane farmer is taxed:- Value Added Tax - 16 per cent Presumptive Tax - 2 per cent Cess - 1 per cent Corporate Tax - 30 per cent Sugar Development Levy - 7 per cent Retention - 16 per cent The farmer ends up losing 81 per cent. That is the percentage that is taken away from the farmer. I have a case in my constituency where a widowed lady delivered cane to Nzoia Sugar Company. Out of a bill of Kshs196,000, the factory took away Kshs186,000 and paid her only Kshs10,000. That is what the farmer is going through. The Minister must bring back the Sugar Act in this House. We must comprehensively look at it. We must get rid of the likes of out-growers organisations that are fleecing the farmers. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, why does the Government tax the sugar farmer the way I have shown, and it does not tax the coffee, tea, milk, pyrethrum and macadamia farmers? We must, as a House, save the more than 6 million farmers that live on cane farming. The last point that I want to make is this: Why is the Electricity Regulatory Board offering Ibera Africa Kshs13 per kilowatt of power while it is offering Mumias Sugar Company only Kshs2 per kilowatt? Why should that happen? How can our sugar factories produce energy, if that is what they are offered? The Minister once said that he has a lot to tell us. We want to support him to reform that industry, but he must take the lead here and now. Thank you."
}