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{
    "id": 664352,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/664352/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 141,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Kimaru",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2072,
        "legal_name": "Anthony Mutahi Kimaru",
        "slug": "anthony-mutahi-kimaru"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. Although I come from a non-sugarcane growing region I feel with my compatriots who grow sugarcane. I would like to thank Hon. Wafula Wamunyinyi. He should be Wafula Wamunene, if he came from my area, for this very good amendment. We have over time been told that subsidies have no place in Africa. We had a time in Kenya where all subsidised production had to suffer under the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP). Today, we have very little agricultural production that is subsidised. Whereas we are forced by the World Bank and our donor partners to abandon subsidies, these countries subsidise production in agriculture. The move to have Value Added Tax (VAT) reduced is a good move but as other members who have spoken before me have said, we need to look at it keenly to see that the gains that we would want to go to the farmer are not lost. More often than not, you will find that whenever taxes and prices are reduced, this is not transferred to the end user. This may not be transferred to the farmer. When we look at the transporters, the same factories may be transporters. You may also have private transporters in this business. So, if taxes reduce, probably what might end up happening is that instead of the farmer benefiting, it is the transporter who is benefiting. I would prefer in future a situation where we even have direct subsidies going to the farmers to help them reduce the cost of production. As a country, over time, we have embarked on a destructive path. We are no longer growing coffee and tea as we used to. We want to abandon sugarcane farming and go for alternatives. The net effect of this is that our exports are thoroughly reduced. Our balance of payment is affected. Every day we are importing more than we are exporting. So, our balance of payment is unfavourable to this country. We tend to be a nation that consumes more than it produces. Rarely do you create wealth by consuming only. If you have to be a prosperous nation, you must produce and export even more."
}