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"id": 30345,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/30345/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Kabando wa Kabando",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports",
"speaker": {
"id": 31,
"legal_name": "Kabando wa Kabando",
"slug": "kabando-kabando"
},
"content": "Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, if we want to mark our achievements in all areas, then the totality or the total solution in agriculture is very important. It is quite disheartening that while we are doing very major projects towards Vision 2030 in various sectors--- In the energy sector, we have electrification going on everywhere. Infrastructure is quite a success story and many people are very appreciative. In the area of supply of water, at least, we know that there is damming that would be initiated to cater for the pipeline layout for the country. The buildings in the city and suburbs are skyrocketing. We have skyscrapers everywhere in the suburbs of Nairobi and other cities and towns across the country. But that has not sufficiently provided the evidence of wealth creation because a people whose produce from their farms cannot be marketed and cannot achieve household income would constitute a major drawback. It is the same way we are watching Kinangop and other areas in the western belt producing, but the produce cannot be used effectively to ameliorate the hunger problems in the north. That, again, brings a major drawback. So, we are a nation of contradictions. It is a serious contradiction in the context of Africa that a nation like Malawi, whose people are living in less modern houses than Kenya, and whose cities are many miles away from the cities of Nairobi, Kisumu, Mombasa and others, are exporting their food to the Republic of Kenya, which has a bigger GDP. This is a contradiction whose corrective measure I see in this Motion by Mr. Namwamba. That way, we can provide for our people. The KFA infrastructure can be utilized maximumly to enable producers to market what they have and, therefore, create wealth within their households, and also help the Government, other agencies and people who can afford to buy. In this county, even as we talk about the famine that is going on because of drought--- We saw what happened just two days ago. Perhaps, if there were arrangements for agricultural production in Turkana, the floods that we are seeing now claiming the lives of people - as the drought is also claiming more lives, it would not be such a sharp contradiction. So, when there is rain, there is disaster. When there is drought, there is also disaster. That chain needs to be revived and its revival needs to be considered with restructuring; the way KFA was done. We should appreciate that politics played a huge role in the collapse of KFA. When we are conscious of that fact, then we are able to also lay the framework to produce a solution. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, while debt relief will be important, the infrastructure - and Mr. Namwamba, whom we are very thankful for this Motion – for good governance of KFA is needed. It is bad politics that brought KFA down. Nothing else! It is not because the Government did not have money. The money has always been there. But we know that because the leadership of KFA was effective at that time, and it was not compliant or sycophantic, they were crashed. So, when an individual at KFA was being fought politically in the Rift Valley Province, KFA for the farmers of Kenya also collapsed. In my constituency, we have initiated very many agri-based projects through the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF). But just two days ago, holding a baraza with my district agricultural officer, we identified a big problem of making the farmers in the remoter parts of that constituency classified as part of the Central Kenya Dry Lands Zone in the acquisition of seeds. As we know, CDF cannot buy seeds for everybody in the households. So, the agribusiness project that we have initiated, we have to go through primary schools for the tissue culture bananas and pineapples we go to public land, for green houses, we have to go through secondary schools and polytechnics. Why this is marked as a success is because the private farms, which constitute 90 per cent of the farmland in major parts of this country – the arable part of this country – can only be utilized positively if those farmers in the individual and private capacities are assisted. That can happen with an institution like KFA. Therefore, this Motion should not be even persuading us to do this. We, on the side of the Government, should be saying that it is a bonus that an hon. Member has come forward to lay this Motion on the Floor of the House so that the right thing can be done."
}