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{
    "id": 520220,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/520220/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 228,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Wangwe",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2543,
        "legal_name": "Emmanuel Wangwe",
        "slug": "emmanuel-wangwe"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, hon. Speaker. I proceed to support the Motion as I mentioned last time I spoke. The Report is suggesting the privatisation of the public sector-owned sugar mills. It is a good one. However, I wish to give some salient issues in the Report. There is the issue of management which the Report touches on. I want to single out the issue as it is from the side of Mumias Sugar Company. In as much as we want to privatise the sugar mills, the point of management must be really considered in terms of who is the person or parties that are going to manage it. Immediately the Government does the privatisation, it leaves the management in the hands of anybody and does not mind what happens next. In such cases, the management ends up misusing the resources of the privatised companies they are entrusted to manage. A good example is Mumias Sugar Company, which has been brought down by the management to as low as the purported Kshs6.2 billion, according to the audit report by KPMG. When you look at the issue of management, it also spills to consultancy firms. We have auditors who have been managing those firms. We have audited financial statements for the companies that are there but, so far, nothing has happened. Why is it that the audit is now revealing something that has been happening for a long time? The challenge goes back to the Committee on Finance, Planning and Trade. Let the Committee come up with laws that are very strict with regard to the audit companies. The audit firms that are going to carry on those services should do so with a lot of discipline within themselves. There is also the issue of corruption. When you read what happened recently in Mombasa, a KRA officer was found hiding Mumias sugar products purporting that it was from Mumias Sugar Company and yet, it was sugar imported from Brazil. That means we should not be worried about the COMESA safeguards but, rather, we should worry about the product that comes in from outside, and that is purported to be from Mumias Sugar Company. We need to look at the very critical issue which the Report is also not bringing out very clearly - the separation of land and the machinery. The privatisation process is noble, but the issue of land is so critical. Our ancestral parents gave us the land. When the Government was taking over the land, it did not buy it. The Government did not give any remuneration to our people. Instead it said: “This is going to be your plant.” What is going to happen in the process of privatisation? We demand that through this process, land should be bought and the farmers who gave out their land in form of nuclear estates be compensated at the current rates. Let them not just be neglected and told that 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."
}