Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 334063,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/334063/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 217,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dr. Kones",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 53,
        "legal_name": "Julius Kipyegon Kones",
        "slug": "julius-kones"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, thank you for giving me this chance to contribute to this very important Bill. We agree that agriculture remains the main economic stay for this country. It is so important that we streamline the laws and regulations governing this sector. I want to thank the Minister for moving with speed. She had promised previously to come up with harmonized Bills. Having gone through the Bill, I also have some concerns which I am sure the Minister will address as she responds. I am not sure whether this Bill will achieve the intended objective, particularly, when we lump all the crops and we have got issues to do with penalties. I do not know how all the crops can be uniform. When I look at Schedule I of all the scheduled crops, I can see crops like tea and sugar-cane combined with maize, rice and beans. When you look at this, it looks like you will need to have a license to go and deal with those crops. I do not understand whether that will be practical to require every family that grows maize or beans to have licences to do that. Probably, the Minister will have to clarify that. Secondly, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Bill presupposes that the Authority that will be established will manage the entire sector. I do not see the justification as to why we should have another fund under this Crops Bill which, in my own view, is an additional levy to the farmers. Once we have an Authority which is funded by the Government, why should we still want to establish another fund? That means taxing the farmers more on their crops to do the functions which the Central Government ought to do and not a fund. In my own view, I think we may not achieve what we wanted. In fact, we may discourage farmers from going into farming by having these levies. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, where we have made reference to the Cabinet Secretary imposing levies, I would wish to see a situation where Parliament is"
}