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{
    "id": 521108,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/521108/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 162,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Eng.) Gumbo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 24,
        "legal_name": "Nicholas Gumbo",
        "slug": "nicholas-gumbo"
    },
    "content": "all those other companies. When we look at the problems going on in MSC today, one begins to wonder whether privatisation is going to be the cure of all those problems. I think we have to address the real problems in the sugar sector. For me, the biggest problem in the sugar sector remains the fact that the price of imported sugar is much cheaper than the price of locally produced sugar. I have been told that some of the imported sugar costs as low as USD300 per tonne while the price of producing local sugar has gone to as high as US$750 per tonne. If we do not address those problems, we are not going anywhere. As my good friend from Sigowet/Soin has said, let us also look at the issue of land on which those factories are and even the surrounding communities. Part of the problems people have had with privatisation is that it does not put limitations as to how much is guaranteed for the local communities and yet, they always have a feeling that the properties in question are ‘their resources’. As we privatise, let us look at all those issues. We cannot divorce community issues from economic issues because if we divorce them, we will be bringing tension. We know that people fight over resources and this is one. When you go to South Nyanza where I went to school, you will find that SONY Sugar Company sits on land that belongs to the people there. If you privatise it, what do you do with the land? That is because there is no value you add on the land by privatising. I think it is good we look into those salient issues because going on a commercial direction without looking at what immediate benefits you are transferring is improper. I have talked to some of the people in those areas and their fear is that once this thing is privatised, people with a lot of money from other parts of the country will come and buy the company. The locals will thus be reduced to bystanders who merely do menial and subordinate jobs. Those are real concerns which we have to address if we are to limit the tensions in our country. More importantly, I am one person who speaks. I think it is almost a universal principle that thinking big and thinking small costs you the same amount of energy. If I sit here and imagine that I want to own a jet and I sit here and imagine that I want to own a bicycle, it costs me the same amount of energy. We must ask ourselves the question: “Why will it be possible to transport sugar from Rio de Jeneiro in Brazil and by the time it lands in Nairobi, it is cheaper and almost half the price of sugar that is produced here in Mumias?” I think the problem lies with the fact that while in places like Brazil sugar is a by-product of another industrial process, ours is the main product. Jaggery and molasses, which are waste products, in essence, are its other major products of sugar in Kenya. The Brazilians have gone ahead and are producing bio-fuel and other products from sugar. I think if we go and look at it that way, then we will see sense. I am not convinced that the Government should be doing business but, instead, be running a country. Let us get the Government out of this business and be careful about the issues surrounding the communities in those places. Let us be careful on how we are going to safeguard the clear inalienable rights of those communities so that we do not end up by privatising and only transferring wealth from one community to another. If we do that, then the purpose, though noble, may not have achieved much in as far as the long term goals of our country are concerned. With those remarks, hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I support. 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."
}