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"id": 47454,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Mututho",
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"legal_name": "John Michael Njenga Mututho",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this privatization process that we are beginning simply means, by any other word, that you are going to have new owners. You may give it a very good name, or a very English name, âprivatization,â but the bottom line is that we are going to have new masters. How are you going to have new masters of Mumias land? This is land that they gave to those people there, and then you are going to have the John Mututhos of this world come and take over all that land. How are you going to sit and say that several counties all go up for sale because of the privatization process? This Committee recommends that, without blinking, and listen to us, that in the process of production and overtime these farmers lost between 20 per cent and 30 per cent. Their equity contribution to what you are calling your wealth, in terms of those factories, is 30 per cent. Therefore, we should be honourable enough to reciprocate by giving free shares to these farmers, who have all the years been contributing to this wealth, because this is now common wealth; they should have a non-transferable 30 per cent. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the second step is to take 21 per cent of shares to be traded. This should be added to the 30 per cent to make 51 per cent. This can be done by the check-off system. That would cut off matatu operators from trying to acquire what they cannot manage. Ultimately you will have 51 per cent owned by the local people. Local people are not condemned to poverty. Local people are investors. Local people have put in their land. Local people have put in their family labour in total to produce cane. These people must be rewarded. Profits or no profits, this Government needs to feed its people. They need to educate their children and work on their health. You cannot work on those parameters if the poverty levels, as they are now, continue to be accelerated by these poor policy decisions taken before we came to this House, and enforced using the Sugar Act of 2001 and so forth. There is the KSB, which is a political tool. It is about who is who. Madam Minister, you are here. You should step in and be able to come up with another board within the guidelines that we have set out, so that you have, just as they are doing to have a new Chief Justice and new everybody--- Maybe you can recycle some. However, make sure they are people who can stick to the policies that we setting out here. The inbuilt policy within the sugar framework should not be that of exploitation. It should not be that of creating poverty; it should be that of enhancing development and generating wealth from the people. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we got a Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) concession, you remember. This COMESA thing has been talked of more than actualized; now is the time. The Minister is here. These Ministers, in the memos they do to the Cabinet and other places, they must take this COMESA Treaty seriously. We are in slumber; they are working on the other side; how shall we safeguard our people when the time comes? Shall we continue asking for extensions? The extension of time will not solve the problem. The extension of time will only aggravate the problem. I want to look at affordable credit in a nutshell. Why do we give credit which has inbuilt exploitation? I have already discussed the farm level credit, and said that the farmers are given farm inputs, but they are oversupplied. This means that if you require inputs for Kshs30,000, you are given inputs for Kshs60,000 and you have to pay for them. You are stuck with the inputs, and since they are overpriced--- As I said in the case of Mumias where they would sell DAP fertilizer at about Kshs6,000 per bag; you cannot be able to sell off that particular input. Again, if your intention is to give farm credit, then let it be genuine farm credit, which is pegged on reality. There is now the big story about new investors who have come in and, apparently, have been licensed. They too would like to have a piece of the cake. Yes, let us all have a piece of the cake, but let us also observe decorum. If you come to SONY, appreciate that Kshs2.8 billion worth of cane has been invested there by some people. Just like the banking loans, if you are holding a loan by the Barclays Bank of Kenya, there is nothing wrong with you going to the Equity Bank, as long you declare the same, so that there can be compensation to Equity Bank or vice versa. What we are saying is that if you are in the SONY area, you have your cane and you have got a very good deal from Kibos, go ahead, but declare that. The Minister should come up with secondary legislation and regulations to guide how this business will be conducted. This will ensure that you do not tie people who want to do business to any particular factory. At the same time, you should not allow people to come and just enjoy what others have just planted. During the last show â and I thank the Ministry of Agriculture again because you hold your annual shows even when there are challenges â you demonstrated that you can have a micro sugar processor in the sense that you can have a very small plant and produce white sugar in your household. We are not coming to that yet, but if it will be, then we must make necessary legislative framework to allow that to happen without cheating. If Mumias has invested in a particular farmer in terms of cane development, then that liability should be shifted to the new investor. That transaction should be done overboard and everything should be done clearly and clean so that everybody benefits at the end of the day. You cannot have somebody going to the middle of Mumias, put up a cane factory without investing and considering those other people and then continue harvesting cane. The price you will pay should include the establishment of that cane. The farmer does not own it wholly because already there is some investment by the factory and so on. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the Minister for Agriculture, we have serious doubt on the quality of cane seed which is produced. Really, at this moment in time - year of our Lord 2011 - we know it and everybody knows it. You have your research stations and the releases cannot be the same ones which were done in the 1940s or the 1960s. You must have good crop. We went all the way to the former Ramisi and shockingly, they are coming back to the original varieties. Everybody knows including Libya that they have been able to do a major evolution or revolution in terms of cane and cane varieties so that we have cane that matures in a shorter period. As long as our cane takes 18 months to mature, we are out of business because that is too long a time to wait. You better go with the trend and have high yielding cane, better varieties and that is within the capacity of the Ministry of Agriculture. Again, no good reason was given as to why that has not been happening. However, that is the situation we have on the ground. One of the key features of a Parliamentary Committee, as you can see, is to play the oversight role. This oversight was peculiar in the sense that it was public hearing which was well attended. It has lasted from 2009 and that is why I am speaking very slowly so that you can understand what we understand. If you go through the trouble that the farmers have gone through, you will either not think of farming sugarcane again, or you just feel like quitting. You have already wasted your five, ten or 15 years on the cane. If you look at it, you will find that it is deep green and very good crop indeed. This is the case and yet you are still waiting for the skies and the Government to change from KANU, to the wonderful NARC and to even more wonderful ODM plus all the accessories, plus PNU. The bottom line is, how does the farmer benefit? The farmer lives by promises or in debts!"
}