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{
    "id": 419191,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/419191/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 234,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Onyura",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 12833,
        "legal_name": "Michael Aringo Onyura",
        "slug": "michael-aringo-onyura"
    },
    "content": "the process we may overlook certain things but when it comes to implementing them, we realise that they have very serious implications to the cost of living for the ordinary Kenyan. Talking of the cost of living, there are people within our population who live at approximately one US Dollar a day. That is how the talk has been. However, looking at what is happening now, the amount is going down. We have gotten to a stage where we have people who are living at less than half a Dollar a day. We will soon be talking about cents a day. This cannot be allowed to continue. That is why interventions like the one before us today is important. It will assist in bringing down the cost of living for the ordinary person. The Government must continuously come up with proactive programmes that can assist the ordinary person in terms of wealth creation. One of the initiatives is assisting with wealth creation through agriculture. We have to do everything we can to support and encourage agriculture, particularly at a time like now, when the rains are just starting. This is the time to support our farmers. We should be able to provide them with fertilizers and certified seeds. In fact, instead of waiting until we experience famine or food shortage and then we start spending so much money importing food, we should deploy that money now to support farming activities and any other productive activities. I want to support what my brother, hon. Opiyo, has just said, about the structure of such support, like fertilizers and seeds. I have also noticed that there is no clear structure. In fact, the activity is fairly uncoordinated to some extent. It is not very clear how one can get seeds or fertilizers. It is not clearly known who is dealing with such issues. Such things should be very clearly laid out, so that anybody looking for this kind of support can get it easily. At the moment, if you try to go through this, you are taken through all manner of maze of bureaucracy. You are sent to various offices to get some approvals and letters. This kind of bureaucracy only discourages the farmers. They go round and round until they give up. That way, we lose very useful opportunities that can assist us in producing sufficient food. So, it is very important that we have very clear guidelines and policies regarding this kind of support. On other areas of production that have been mentioned, like the tragedy of the sugar industry, in my constituency, we have a number of farmers who have been engaged in sugarcane production. What I am observing is that before long, a lot of them will be discouraged completely from growing any sugarcane. The factories that are supposed to be assisting and encouraging the farmers to produce sugarcane have neglected them. What is now happening is that after the farmers do all the work that they are supposed to do and wait for a long time for the cane to mature, once the sugarcane is taken to the factories, farmers end up getting what is commonly known as “DRs” in my constituency. In other words, they get negatives. This is very discouraging. There was a time when the Government, in an initiative to encourage production and wealth creation, came up with a number of the so-called economic stimulus projects. Many of those projects have stalled. They need to be supported, so that they can be completed rather than having several of them being white elephants or monuments that do not help anybody. With those comments, I support the Bill. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}