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{
    "id": 610229,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/610229/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 202,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Langat",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 384,
        "legal_name": "Benjamin Kipkirui Langat",
        "slug": "benjamin-langat"
    },
    "content": "sugar, even after it is transported from Brazil all the way to Mombasa, Nairobi, Eldoret and Mumias, because we produce sugar as the main product. This needs to be addressed so that in addition to sugar, we can produce fuel like they do in other countries, so that we have sugar as a by-product. One of the other challenges that we have in the country is the small-holder sugar farms. In western Kenya, farmers have two or three acres of land. When I say western Kenya, it includes even my constituency. We have sugarcane but on a small scale. For us to have economies of scale in the sugar sector, we should have large quantities of land under sugarcane. The other challenge the sector has been facing is huge debts. In fact, the companies that I have mentioned owe Kenya Government close to Kshs60 billion cumulatively. The debts have been accumulated as loans, tax arrears and land rates. There is no way they can survive with the huge interest rates. Those are some of the challenges the sector is facing. They are many, but I do not want to mention all of them. I have mentioned the main ones. That is why a decision was made in the last Parliament around 2010 that all sugar factories that are owned by the Government should be privatized so that we can get the private sector doing the job. I come from a tea growing region and all our tea factories are owned by farmers privately. The Government holds no shares and the sector has succeeded in many ways. Under the Privatisation Act, the Government in 2010 approved the privatisation plan to privatise the five sugar factories that I have mentioned and we are at the tail end of the process. The last Parliament, almost at the close of its business in January 2013, fell short of approving the plan. They agreed to have the county governments legislation on Agriculture and Food Authority in place. These have been put in place. We are supposed to approve this Report pursuant to the Privatisation Act, which requires that Parliament should approve the privatisation plan of the Government before it proceeds to sell the factories."
}