HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 2738,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/2738/?format=api",
"text_counter": 429,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Mututho",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 97,
"legal_name": "John Michael Njenga Mututho",
"slug": "john-mututho"
},
"content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, as I said yesterday, the best we got in terms of corporate social responsibility at one time in Naivasha was a mortuary, because people there die in big numbers. People have refused to take bodies of their loved ones there because it is a contentious mortuary. We have welfare organisations. The people have not built homes but they have to transport bodies every weekend, including this weekend, to western Kenya, Nyanza, et cetera . We are in a country where people thrive on rumours and because of my strong argument on this basis, certain people have said that I have joined the party of my sister, ODM. If helping the workers in the flower farms means joining the ODM, let it be. You cannot sit here, enjoy the privileges that we have here and have these people go through all that torture, yet they contribute 10 per cent of the national GDP. They are the ones who sit in cold rooms and spray them, and everywhere else. They are there all the time. Tonight, they will be there. They are on time, so that you can enjoy the roses. Naivasha produces 50 per cent of the world’s red roses, with one farm producing 8 per cent. That is about a million stems per day, worth the equivalent of Kshs50 million per day. They give us manual figures and say that they are making losses. They like misleading us. It is painful. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, when there was volcanic ash sprouting into the air in Europe, they spoke the truth. They said that they were losing Sterling Pounds1.9 million per day, and this was published by all the media houses. So, if you want to know how big this industry is, multiply Sterling Pounds 1.9 million by the number of days in a year, and there you will be. The flower farm management said that they would relocate to Ethiopia. I went to Ethiopia, and I thank Mr. Speaker for approving my trip to Ethiopia. I went to the flower farms in that country. Ethiopia have just found out that these guys cheat. These guys just mislead everybody. So, Ethiopia has put in place a very strong law, barring anybody from running a foreign account outside Ethiopia because they ship out 97 per cent of the revenue. The poor Ethiopians are left with 3 per cent, and even with the 3 per cent left behind, they still do better than we do in Kenya. I learnt that they pay workers a minimum equivalent of Kshs60 per day and we still compete with them. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the smallest of the flower firms in Naivasha, for instance, is called Groove Limited. The owner is a very annoyed man that we are talking about increasing the salary of an unskilled labourer to Kshs10,000 per month. He admits, in a letter he wrote, that he pays Kshs10,419 but he was very annoyed that we are coming up with a statute to compel flower farms to be paying workers a certain minimum wage. The big companies we know of there, including some where some Members of Parliament have interests, pay more than Kshs7,8000, and where one has benefits, he is paid up to Kshs12,000. We are asking for a minimum pay wage of Kshs10,000, enough to make a human being live and enjoy his work. If the Minister for Labour would be kind enough and look at Section 46 of the existing law, it partly says that upon gazettement, he has to table it before this House. I have sat in this House for four years. Some hon. Members have been in this House for a very long time. We have never seen them table that document. They do it in secrecy. So, all the Gazette Notices that have come---"
}