Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 619482,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/619482/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 285,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Nooru",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2238,
        "legal_name": "Adan Mohamed Nooru",
        "slug": "adan-mohamed-nooru"
    },
    "content": "Allow me to enumerate the various findings of the Committee. The first issue is the presence of cheap and unregulated sugar in the local market. The Committee established that huge quantities of sugar are entering into the market, which is unregulated and untaxed. There are issues of illegal sugar coming into the country. It is illegal in the sense that we have a COMESA quota which is supposed to fill the gap between sugar production and consumption deficit in this country. However, sometimes, the regulators issue licences or permits to importers at the wrong time when there is a lot of sugar in the market. On the other hand, they do not make follow us after issuing licences. Sometimes, these licences are misused. If an importer is allowed to import 10,000 metric tonnes of sugar, he imports two or three times that amount. The 200,000 metric tonnes that should be imported to supplement local production as per the consumption level is overdone and it floods the market. That is with regard to the sugar that is imported legally as per the COMESA rules of trade. It is misused because it is not guided properly. The other issue is illegal sugar that people bring in and declare it as rice or sometimes as fertilizer. The KRA officials collude with importers, so that they do not identify these commodities and proper taxes are not paid. It becomes very difficult for the local sugar to compete with sugar which has not been taxed. The production cost of sugar in the countries of origin is very low and so, locally produced sugar cannot compete with imported sugar. In the last six years, the country has consumed approximately 335,000 metric tonnes of sugar according to the Kenya Bureau of Statistics (KBS) statistics. The other issue is the misuse of industrial sugar which is brought in without taxation. The sugar is supposed to be for industries. It is brought in without proper taxes being paid and it is repackaged and used as table sugar. If you go to our Five Star hotels, you will find the repackaged industrial sugar. This is another difficult area which requires to be checked in terms of over flooding our market. The other issue is that the regulator, namely, the Kenya Sugar Board (KSB), has not followed the proper channel of regulating importers. After issuing certificates, KSB’s mandate would be to follow up, see how much sugar has been brought in and whether what has been brought in is in accordance to the permit that they issued. There is lack of coordination between the KRA and the KSB, which issues permits. In the process, the businessmen find a loophole that enables them to use the permits for more than three years to import the same quantities of sugar. The other issue is sugarcane poaching as a result of the regulator not checking the regulations when they issue permits or licences to build mills. Mills are supposed to be built within certain proximities. They do not follow the rules. Before they issue permits to millers, they should check development of their cane before the nuclear estates. This has skewed the distribution of raw materials because of the proximity of the millers. That tempts the millers to poach sugarcane while they have not given farmers loans to develop cane. They only come and start harvesting cane that has been developed by other millers through their loans or their nucleus. That also brought a lot of problems in the sugar sector. 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."
}