Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 629908,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/629908/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 267,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Prof.) Lonyangapuo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 447,
        "legal_name": "John Krop Lonyangapuo",
        "slug": "john-lonyangapuo"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also join my colleagues in congratulating Sen. Kittony, who is a large scale-farmer in Trans-Nzoia, for reading the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 properly. The Fourth Schedule of the Constitution enumerates the functions of the national and county governments. The first function, which has been devolved, is agriculture. There are a total of 14 functions under the county governments. In the national government functions, agriculture is number 29 out of 35. It strictly talks about agriculture. However, the activities and functions of agriculture, which is the mainstay of the economy of Kenya – our GDP relies heavily on agriculture – were devolved to the county governments. The key instruments that enable agriculture to be what it is were maintained at the national level. It is supposed to be strictly policy. One of the institutions that are supposed to work seriously is the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB). The law was supposed to be amended immediately to enable the devolved functions to be executed in the counties. Although the Bill has come three years later, it will give us a major boost in implementing this Constitution and guarantee that we have food in our country. One of the key functions of the NCPB as indicated here is to guarantee food security. Should there be food scarcity in Kenya, the NCPB would provide food. In the 1970s and 1980s, many silos and stores were built across the country, including areas where most cereals were not grown. This is because the people of Kenya depend mainly on cereals for food. If you visit Turkana, in all the six constituencies, there is one large NCPB. It is a store where Government buys cereals and stores them. From there, the local people can easily access food to buy or get relief food. It is accessible. In most of our counties we have them, including Nairobi County which has many poor people. However, when we promulgated the new Constitution, we did not devolve the NCPB to the counties. The hon. Senator who brought this Bill has talked about counties which produce food. I propose that at the Committee of the Whole, we should amend this to include all the 47 counties. All of them must have the County Cereals and Produce Committee. The Committees will advise the governor and county residents. Having looked at the production level of food, they can have their own silos. Then, you can easily engage counties that produce cereals, buy and store them. It defeats logic that year in, year out, we go to the Port of Mombasa and wait for foodstuffs, mainly wheat and maize to be brought and sold here. Cartels have a habit of messing up the internal mechanisms used to boost our agricultural sector so that they quickly go to the port of Mombasa, import food and sell it at exorbitant price. I thank the promoter of the Bill because she has gone further and listed the kind of people who are required to sit in this Committee. She has cited six or seven people. Regarding the first one; a person with knowledge and experience in matters related to agriculture and will be appointed by the county governor---. This is true. However, all the The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes"
}