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{
    "id": 47448,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/47448/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 330,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Mututho",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 97,
        "legal_name": "John Michael Njenga Mututho",
        "slug": "john-mututho"
    },
    "content": "It is time, with or without a new Constitution we listened to the sugar story. It is a sad story. It is a story of poverty generated by policies. It is a sad story that makes anybody move down to tears when you look at the people; when you look at the level of abuse. In 2001, this House did pass a Sugar Act. This Act was celebrated all over. However, did you know that in doing payment for sugar, you have only two variables. The first variable is the weight of the cane and the second variable is the market value of the sugar. Let us start with the first one, that upon harvesting, the cane is knocked 24 per cent by scrupulous weighbridges. A few days before that happens, you have to put it in big stacks. There you lose about 5 to 10 per cent moisture depending on the weather. So, already you have lost because you are dealing with weight. The other parameter is the weight of sugar in the open market. Who does not know that this whole sugar business is controlled by about three or four people; these are sugar barons? So, the sugar prices in the market are not controlled by demand and supply, but by individuals who sit over a cup of tea. Thank you to Mututho; he has controlled the number of drinking hours. They come up to say that now sugar will be at this level. That entry is now taken as the gospel truth and they use that one plus the weight. Even a child knows that sugarcane from one farm could be sweeter than from the other one. In actual fact they can even double. That is called sucrose content. So, anybody who was willing to pay the farmers and compensate them should have considered sucrose content. Everyone knows that the by product is called biogas. Biogas is one of those by products that are produced after you have done your sugar milling. That biogas has a value. Indeed, the new factory I saw in Kilgoris does not plan to use any electricity. They want to use biogas to produce total electricity. So, who owns the biogas? Biogas is owned by the farmers. Therefore, the formula should have that bit to acknowledge. Looking at the sugar per se, sugar as a crop produces some of the finest food supplements. I want to tell people and my friends who want to be healthy that one of the best products to control blood fat or cholesterol is a product which is derived from sugar. A packet of 30 of those tablets costs about Kshs5,000. That is how useful that can be. For those people who are producing that kind of thing, then the farmer must get compensation for that. Look at molasses and also the amount of alcohol produced in those areas, it is enough to make the whole of the former Central Province drunk, yet farmers do not get a penny out of it. The molasses and all those small factories do not give farmers anything, nothing at all! I am reminded of time. But if you remember that from 1902 nobody has made profits in that particular area, then I deserve a bit more time, so that you understand and see and feel what I do in terms of the farmers and what can be done by this House at policy level to resolve the problem. Some of it, and I believe Madam Minister is here---"
}