Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 674960,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/674960/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 71,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Kipyegon",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1453,
        "legal_name": "Johana Ngeno Kipyegon",
        "slug": "johana-ngeno-kipyegon"
    },
    "content": "I think Hon. Lessonet is just interested in jogging my mind. Fish is not sold for making clothing material. It is sold for food. When we talk about fish, we talk about food. So, regardless of whether you eat fish or you do not, fish is meant to be food. I was just saying that as a farmer, I think we need to seriously concentrate on areas like fish farming. This country relies on farming mostly. A programme was started sometimes back to introduce fish ponds in almost every constituency in this country. It was a very good programme because it would have led to higher production of fish. However, it is absurd because that project never took off. As I speak, we are being told that our country is importing fish from China. This Government is obsessed with China until they are importing fish. We are even being told they are almost importing children. We need to agree that this country is self-sufficient. We can have our own fish. We can even export fish. It is pathetic that we always take our capacity for granted that we cannot do this or we have no capacity to do this. Look at maize. We have been growing maize and maize farmers are frustrated from all corners. The bread basket of this country has gone down just because we did not give serious concentration on the farmers. We have resulted to importing maize. It is funny that we import maize while we can grow our maize. We let our maize rot in the farms. Concentration by the Government must be put on areas where Kenya has a potential. Like what my brother has said, fish is one of the fastest rotting types of meat. Therefore, we need to have good harvesting and preservation methods. Preservation is the most important because fish cannot last long. People throw their fish because they cannot be preserved. They do not have coolants to preserve the fish. In my opinion, we should support this Motion. This idea of urging the Government is not good. We had agreed in this House that there are some Motions which we do not need to urge the Government. We need to make it a reality because after all, this House is meant to do legislation. Therefore, this idea of urging the Government should stop. We are supposed to direct the Government to do what we think is best for this country. The idea of urging the Government and passing a Motion only for it to gather dust in some rooms should not be applicable. We need to make it compulsory for the Government to assist fish farmers to supply enough fish for this country. Almost half of the people who eat dinner and lunch in hotels eat fish. Therefore, it must be understood that we are not going to be eating Chinese fish while we have our fish in Lake Victoria, Lake Turkana and the Indian Ocean. The reason why governments, especially the current Government, have not concentrated seriously on fishing is because fishing is normally associated with areas like Nyanza, Western and Coast, which are believed to be Opposition areas. They do not care to assist those particular areas. These are Kenyans. Fishermen, from Coast, Western or Nyanza, regardless of the political parties, are Kenyans. They supply us with fish. When we eat fish in hotels, we do not care to know whether it is from the Opposition or from the Government side. We eat fish because it is fish. These fishermen are also taxpayers. The fish they sell to us is usually taxed. So, they must be assisted by the Government. Institutions which train people on fish farming must also be supported. We should establish institutions which are meant to train fishermen and all the people who would want to deal with fishing. We also need to introduce an authority. I wish we could have an authority like the Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC) dealing with fishing. 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."
}