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{
    "id": 305851,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/305851/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 473,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Wetangula",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Trade",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 210,
        "legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
        "slug": "moses-wetangula"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker. I stand to second this Bill. The Bill is important to the extent that KEPHIS as currently constituted needs to be strengthened, empowered and supported to discharge its mandate. Seed quality and varieties of all plants and crops is very critical for any economy. If we do not get it right, we will not do it right. That is why I support this amendment so that we bring ourselves within the net of international conventions and international treaties governing and protecting research outcomes, production, distribution and dissemination of seeds for crops and plants. In so doing, I want to urge, my colleague, the Minister to pay attention to one or two things. You know Kenya is a country of the quick profit margin for everybody. Even as we have quacks in other professions, we also have quacks who pretend to produce and multiply seeds for plants and crops. Some do not even pretend to produce anything. During planting time, we hear many things. I come from a maize producing region, so do you, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker and the Minister herself, where fraudulent and unscrupulous traders simply pick maize cereals, cover them with blue Omo and other substances and sell it to unsuspecting farmers pretending that these are good variety high yielding seeds. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I want to urge the Minister to enhance the penalty that she is proposing for malpractices so that she can be able to provide a deterrent for those who are engaged in these malpractices for the simple reason that when somebody embarks on such mischief, you are not only undermining food production in the country, but actually committing an economic crime. Perhaps this is the reason why we have had these problems with maize diseases and so on and so forth. So, I want to urge the Minister that, in fact, in the new Kenya a penalty of Kshs3, 000 or three months or both for a fraudster who is giving wrong seed to farmers is nothing. I would urge that the penalty be raised to anything up to Kshs500, 000 or three years in jail so that it can be able to provide a deterrent. I am sure this House will support this because we are an agricultural country. If we let quacks undermine our"
}