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{
    "id": 655904,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/655904/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 205,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Manje",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1669,
        "legal_name": "Joseph Wathigo Manje",
        "slug": "joseph-wathigo-manje"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me the chance to contribute to this very important piece of legislation. If we want to create employment in this country, this is the way to go. We have to impose levies and fees to bodies that export unprocessed materials. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I will address two issues. The first one is on scrap metals. In this country, scrap metals are collected and exported to countries like China, where they are processed into steel. The steel is then exported to our country at a very expensive price. If we want to create employment, we must support our local industries that are doing the same job so that we can manufacture steel in our country. Creating more factories to produce steel is the only way we can employ our youth instead exporting our scrap metal to China and indirectly employing Chinese youth. It is becoming very hard to maintain roads supported by metallic bars in this country because unscrupulous people steal metallic bars and sell them as scrap metal. This is the law we need to cushion ourselves through imposition of 20 per cent duty on export of raw materials. The other area that I want to speak to is on hides and skin. I support this but with slight amendment. I have realized they have imposed the same duty for people exporting raw hides and skins and tanned hides and skins. Those are two different things. When you tan hides and skins to a certain level, you remove the upper part and get wet blue. In wet blue form it is about 50 per cent processed. So, if you put the same duty, tax or levy the same way as somebody who is exporting raw hides, the person exporting raw hides will have more advantage and this is what we should discourage. We have about 16 tanneries in this country which are at the verge of collapse if we keep on allowing export of raw hides and skins. If we put heavy levies on the exporters of raw hides and skins, we are assured of continuation of tanneries where our youth will get employment. There is also the issue of value addition. You will find that a tanned wet blue is slightly expensive. Which means it will attract more foreign exchange than raw hides. It will even be better to go to the completion where the raw hides go to leather stage. That is when you will get the maximum value for the hides from the skin. I want to report that from the time we devolved some of these functions the quality of hides and skins in this country has gone down terribly. I do not know what happened to the officers who were in charge of hides and skins. Hides and skins are being taken as bi-product in our slaughter houses such that they are slaughtered in improper areas. After fraying, they try to again get meat from the hide, making the situation even worse. When they are taken to tanneries, most of them are rejected. This is one sector that the Government can come out strongly to improve the quality of hides and skins in this country. You will find that they will take hides and skins as a bi-product of an animal but in other countries, like Brazil, where they take care of their hides and animals by spraying them 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."
}