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    "id": 526435,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/526435/?format=api",
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    "content": "obligations of his life merely because he plants where he does not reap the highest benefit of his hard work and labour. Therefore, we need to bring the purpose of this Bill and include the people or the farmers. If we say those are our principal stakeholders, it would be important to say an Act of Parliament to establish the National Potato Council to promote the quality and quantity of potato production, to set standards to regulate the industry; but we must have an element of the stakeholder before we talk about for connected purposes to ensure maximum benefit goes to those who actually toil to ensure that we eat these potatoes. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, there is a perception - I think I will stand guided by senior lawyers in this House - that we list all these functions in order of hierarchy. There is a perception that maybe 3(a) might be more important than 3(d) and 3(e). There is that perception that is created whereas all of them are binding almost at an equal basis. In terms of the hierarchy of objects we need in Section 3(a) to put the hierarchy as to protect the principal stakeholders we referred to in other parts of this Act; that is the potato grower or farmer. The farmer who we exploit as we travel as Senators who earn good money and stop by the roadside - I hold nothing against you - simply to buy it because you appreciate that at that point when you buy it, it is two or three times cheaper than if you bought it in Nakumatt, where they have simply washed it, put it in a Nakumatt paper bag and then labelled it. I do not know how much benefit then goes back to Nyandarua, Meru and to that last person. As we change and shift the paradigm of our politics, we should not look at these people who are in the majority who always vote for us as simply objects of our political exploitation. There is this very pervasive terminology or what I call “rhetoric”; that when you come into power in Parliament, you say: “Let us make money” and you make money at all costs. Let us make money for our people too and that way, we will give them access and opportunity. Therefore, even as you come to Section 6 again in terms of hierarchy of these functions of the Council, the Council must be told, first and foremost, to safeguard the interests of the principal stakeholder in the potato industry whom I am made to believe by that definition by Sen. Murungi is actually the farmer. That must be the first in terms of hierarchy. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, we must change the style in this Senate. When people see a Bill of the Senate where it originated from, they can easily tell - even though it will be called an Act of Parliament - that this Bill originated from the Senate principally because the person, the Kenyan or the most vulnerable of our society, the most disenfranchised, the most underprivileged is the principal object of that Bill in terms of the fact that he or she is a principal focus. I am talking broadly but I will come with more specific amendments. In terms of our style we must show that we have acquired this pro-people, pro-poor kind of an approach. We can just not allow our people to be simply voters. I get 60 or 70 per cent of my votes from people I know have no means in life. They come here to tell us to fight for them and that is why I want to really commend Sen. (Eng.) Muriuki. I do not have any objective test but if I was to rank some of the best Senators in this Senate or if I was to ever write my memoirs if God gives me that life, I think you are one of those I will definitely bullet because I have seen your focus has been the people of Nyandarua. Your The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}