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"id": 67664,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/67664/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Wamalwa",
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"speaker": {
"id": 148,
"legal_name": "Eugene Ludovic Wamalwa",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir. I rise to support the Motion. It is a matter of supreme irony that in the constituency of the Mover of this Motion, my good friend, hon. Keynan, people are starving because there is no food and in my constituency, as hon. Githae said, there is more food that we know what to do with. It is a matter of great irony, yet I would not agree with my friends who have argued that we should declare this a national disaster now. This is because this will give an excuse to those who are already prepared to import food. They are only waiting for the words ânational disasterâ and they will be off importing food. Kenya is a land of plenty. We have plenty of food enough to feed this nation and even export. But when we are told that at Moiâs Bridge, the silos are full and farmers cannot bring in their crop, yet a few kilometres away, in Muyanga (Bumula), there are silos that are empty and have not been operational for a while and the Minister for Agriculture had been asked to operationalize these silos and has not done so to date. It is absurd that this cannot be done. The crop is still in the fields and all they need to do is to put the right logistics in place to ensure that we empty the silos in Moiâs Bridge, Kitale and Eldoret and transport this food up north to hon. Keynanâs and other constituencies where people are starving. This will create room for other farmers in Kitale, like Dr. Wekesa, to bring in his 20,000 bags. Mr. Speaker, Sir, it is a very serious matter and if only the Government moved with speed--- I am happy that the Minister of State for Defence has said that the military is moving in. We cannot be told that there are no trucks to transport this maize to Ukambani and North Eastern, when we have many trucks in barracks that are lying idle and carrier aircraft that can actually lift tonnes and tonnes of food. We should not be told that they are thinking about this or they are going to have a meeting today to decide. This should have been done like yesterday for this food to be transported to those Kenyans who are starving. We know that as we speak we are not planning for the next planting season. In Kitale, as we speak today, the fertilizer prices have started skyrocketing when the Government had assured us that we would get fertilizer at Kshs2,000. Today, if you to go to a shop, fertilizer is already going for Kshs4,000. Last year before the intervention of the Government a bag of fertilizer was going for Kshs6,000. Unless the Government does something about that today, we will see the prices of fertilizer going back to Kshs6,000. Unless we intervene now and start giving farmers the opportunity to get inputs at affordable prices, then we will be again planning to fail next year. We will be told that there is hunger and we have not produced enough, when the farmers have the capacity to do so. So, those who have delivered must be paid. We should have a policy of cash-on-delivery to give an incentive to farmers, so that when they bring their crop they are paid the same day. That crop should be transferred out of those silos as we speak today. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I am urging that the necessary logistics be put in place so that after exhausting the cereals that are available locally in this country, only then, if Kenyans are still starving, should we declare a national disaster. Mr. Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to support."
}