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{
    "id": 334954,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/334954/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 349,
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    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "The problem in pyrethrum production has been the Government itself, particularly during the Ninth Parliament when the then Minister for Agriculture found it prudent to hire a Chief Executive Officer who lost Kshs3.4 billion during his tenure. My Committee found out that fact. The money disappeared between him and the Ministry. That is in a Report that we laid on the Table which was debated and adopted by this House. The investigative bodies, including the CID and others are still dancing around that investigation and yet it is a very straightforward matter. Huge quantity of poison worth Kshs3 billion was stolen from the stores and sold. Where do we go from here? The story is like this. There are three basic levels of engagement in pyrethrum production. The first one is the farmers’ level. There are about 60,000 pyrethrum farmers. The next level is the processing one. This level is domineered by the PBK as the sole processor. The final level is marketing. Again, this is the domain of the PBK. What we are supporting as a Committee and I am glad that the hon. Member is in agreement, is that because of the international good practice where you respect people’s patents and we pay royalties at the marketing level--- This means that anybody can grow pyrethrum, but on a contract with a particular factory so that when the factory sells the poison it has, again, to pay royalty at the rate of five per cent to the owners of the patent or the people holding it. This will protect both the farmer and the PBK. On the issue of creating the authority, it is well thought, but since the Ministry of Agriculture, in their rightful thinking have now formed an apex body with full regulatory functions, I believe that any additional authority put here is just a burden to the farmers. The PBK is a farmer’s outfit and should be left that way. It is owned by the farmers 100 per cent. The Government has not invested a penny in it as a shareholder and that should be left that way so that the regulatory mechanisms are left to the Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food Authority or whatever they want to call it and then the matter ends there. What is urgent is to repeal Cap.320, Sections 16, 17, 18 and 19 so that this now can be effected and the farmers can go to production. It is a four months crop. It does not require very many months and if we pass the law today, within four months it can be in the market."
}