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"id": 46986,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/46986/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Mututho",
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"speaker": {
"id": 97,
"legal_name": "John Michael Njenga Mututho",
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"content": "his Sunday best of 1978, there must be a problem. Again, I am inviting Members of Parliament and the Cabinet in particular, to look at this thing sympathetically. I reminded you that one day in Kitui, at a place called Mutitu, somebody refused to do a very big bridge, because it was not economically viable. However, inside the document, there was one sentence by an engineer. That sentence by the engineer went like this: âDuring the rains for three to four months families have to use a bowâ. There was no M-Pesa at that time. You shoot across the river, so that the family on the other side can receive the money. That was how they received money from the people who worked in Nairobi. The engineer, who was with International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank at that particular time said due to that sentence alone, they were going to finance that big bridge, because there must be a problem. Now, I am saying, and I want you to understand it that way, even if we do not have the language to make you understand that these farmers have been suffering from 1902--- That suffering was reconfirmed in 1922, 1960 and to date, 2011, they are still suffering. Please, understand their plight. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, a majority of the people here, come from that zone. We all enjoy taking sugar but if you knew what makes that sugar and the suffering it causes to other people, then you would support this Report. There is the Tana Delta and Ramisi. Ramisi Sugar Company is by an investor; we tried to get his identity. We did all we could to try and get the investor; again, this Committee is recommending full investigations. Who is this investor who has no name, and who has got 10 acres to 11 acres? What is his name? Why does he declare the other people to be squatters? There must be somebody, who is connected to the investor; he can be traced and be able to table the plans. Besides, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for both Tana River and Ramisi, the people were there over 100, 200 or 300 years ago. How come that Mumias Sugar Company is now declaring local resident around Tana Delta as squatters? Who is a squatter? Is it Mumias Sugar Company or the residents who have been there for over 100 years? There is nothing to debate there, but if Mumias is interested, then they should follow the same formula of 30 per cent investment. Let them give free shares to those local people. They can continue enjoying the land because that land has been conserved, preserved and owned by those local people. It would be scandalous for us to sit here in this august House and then declare those people who have been there for 200 years as squatters because Mumias Sugar Company wants to do modern farming. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, yesterday, I talked about sugar quality. We are at a loss again in understanding why the Ministry of Agriculture cannot come up with our own sugar cane varieties, even with all the money we have invested in research. They have done very well in the past; they have done it in maize where we have over 20 or 30 varieties. We had good root crops varieties. As early as 1980, we had the sweet potato, KSP-20. That was a wonderful product. Why do they have difficulties now in coming up with a new variety that is suitable and that we do not have to wait for a long 18 months to harvest? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, varieties are available today for rice that can do without that heavy irrigation and which you can do in the highlands because researchers are working. I believe that those people, too, are working. They must also produce those varieties, so that the farmers can enjoy the same."
}