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{
    "id": 350867,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/350867/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 279,
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    "speaker_name": "",
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    "content": "On the President’s Address, I want to say that it was great in our time. It sounds very ambitious and exciting. Unlike many other government programmes and papers that have been floated to the citizenry, it could be implemented to the letter. I looked at it and it touched my heart because everything that I saw about agriculture was relevant to my electorate. As you may all be aware, I represent the bedrock of the sugar industry. If it is properly managed and the Government has goodwill, there is no reason why we should spend a cent from our coffers to import sugar. Instead, we should spend that money to rehabilitate the sugar industry, do the infrastructure, pay the workers well and there will be plenty of sugar in this country to use and export to get foreign exchange. But because of greed of man, we have chosen to import sugar to enrich and fatten the pockets of very few people called “sugar daddies” who have their masters in high positions of power. We make the real sugar fathers become poorer every day. I am happy that we have a new political dispensation and I believe that the new Government will walk their talk. Hon. Deputy Speaker, I was very happy that in his Address the President captured something about infrastructure. In this respect, I want to draw the attention of this House to the fact that in Muhoroni, infrastructure is dead. There is no way you can take cane seed to the farm. Similarly, we have a lot of difficulties in transporting ready cane to the factories; even when we manage to transport it, the factories are half dead. We will call upon the Government’s goodwill to resuscitate the sugar industry very fast, pay farmers in good time and pay the workers well. I heard the President touch on the youth and women. My campaign was traumatizing because I was fighting against very big forces; I encountered the youth and engaged them. They are boys of goodwill. When you talk to them, or when you approach them and they approach you, you think they are just the youth we talk of during campaigns; some are dirty boys who are ready to sing your praises and also throw stones at you. When you engage them, they are very clever boys. They know some things that you do not know, and the things that you already know, they know them better than you. What you have more than them are maybe some resources. These people need empowerment. When I concluded my campaign I said - I wish the Government could capture this - that this country is sitting on time bomb. These youths do not need Kazi kwa Vijana . These youths do not need small stipends from the youth kitty. Why do we not develop what Tom Mboya envisaged for this country, the social welfare fund? This will look after the youth who have left university and who cannot get jobs immediately because of underdeveloped industries. Thank you."
}