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    "id": 374092,
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    "content": "and the Coconut Board. It is not possible. This was mischief perpetrated by a donor organ at the Ministry of Agriculture then. The then Permanent Secretary, Mr. Kiome, in consultation with a few other people, decided to kill the vibrant agriculture sector. Hon. Speaker, the Chairman of the Committee is asking for an extension of the Act’s effective date, which is quite in order since after 24th July, 203, which is next Tuesday, unless we will have amended the Act to push this date forward, we will not be having the Sugar Board of Kenya or the Tea Board of Kenya or the Coffee Board of Kenya. This is a very serious matter. The Act talks of six months from the date it received Presidential assent. Six months from the day the former President assented to the Bill takes us to 24th July, 2013, which is the day by which all the institutions captured in the Bill must have collapsed into one. Therefore, I want to thank the Chairman of the Committee for doing better than the Attorney-General (AG) of the Republic of Kenya. The AG brings Bills to the House only a day before the lapse of such periods. The Chairman of the Committee has at least saved the farmers in the various sub-sectors of the agriculture sector. Therefore, I want to urge hon. Members to look at the entire ALFA Bill. I would like to inform hon. Members that it was called ALFA Bill. If you Google, you will see that in some sites it is called the ALFA Bill but it is no longer ALFA Bill. Hon. Chachu will agree with me that we said in this House, under the leadership of the Minister for Livestock Development then, that we did not want to be part of this quagmire. The architects of the Act that produced this Bill wanted to lump the Livestock Marketing Board and the Kenya Meat Commission (KMC) together with the Sisal Board of Kenya. What has meat got to do with sisal? What has tea got to do with sisal? What has coffee got to do with sugar? We even wanted the Sugar Board of Kenya to be strengthened so that the Sugar Levy Fund could help farmers to develop the access roads. The roads from the farmers to the factories are in very bad shape. Tractors use fuel. They pay money to the Fuel Levy Fund. During that time, we asked why the Ministry of Roads should not use the Fuel Levy Fund to develop the access roads. Here, we have a person saying that we are devolving yet he is creating a different system. Our position on this matter is informed by the spirit of devolution. As a country, we are devolving but in this case, we are being told that we have to combine all these institutions into one. Hon. Speaker, therefore, I support the extension of the Act’s effective date. In fact, I would ask hon. Members that we extend the effective date of this Act by a year, so that this House can have more time to look at it. So, I expect hon. Members to amend the Committee’s proposal to read “one year”, so that hon. Members from the various sub- sectors of the agriculture sector can go back home and initiate consultations among the stakeholders on this matter. Some of the sub-sectors are still very young while others are well developed. The coconut sub-sector, for example, is still at a very early stage. Why should we kill it by lumping it together with tea and coffee? Some of the sectors are doing very badly due to a lot of corruption, while others are doing very well. Why mix them? Hon. Speaker, I support the Motion and request that an amendment be introduced to the Motion to provide for one year, so that the 11th Parliament can look at what the 10th Parliament did. This Act is a product of the Bills that were brought to this House at the"
}