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{
    "id": 749135,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/749135/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 25,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ochieng",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2955,
        "legal_name": "David Ouma Ochieng'",
        "slug": "david-ouma-ochieng"
    },
    "content": "Hon. Deputy Speaker, as I speak, assuming that wheat farmers from the Rift Valley - because that is where we produce wheat today and our production is below 50 per cent of our requirement in the country--- But assuming the wheat farmers had an issue with imports into this country today, they have nowhere to go. So, this law gives them somewhere to go. The law has established an agency, where they can make complaints and present their facts. As soon as that complaint comes in, the agency will be required to do investigations. It is allowed to travel to Pakistan, India or South Africa to check if what they are saying is their production is. indeed, their production cost. The law and the agreements we have with WTO, EAC and COMESA allows us. Those other countries will be required by law to enable our agency to check what they are doing and how much they are using to produce. It will check whether they are under-cutting or under- selling. If they are under-cutting or under-selling, then you are allowed here in Kenya to place, in case of dumping, to put an anti-dumping levy or duty. In case the country concerned is subsidising the production of a product, say milk products, to out-compete the rest of the world, we put the counterfeiting measure to ensure that the difference between the subsidy and the normal operation cost is covered. Where the trade concerned is normal and there is nothing wrong being done, for example, by Malawi or Sudan selling us sugar, the only problem is that the imports of sugar are in such huge quantities that it impacts on the local sugar companies. In Kenya, we have had a safeguard on sugar for the last nine years. The reason the sugar industry has not picked up is because we do not have an agency to monitor and enforce the terms of the safeguard. We will have a situation that if we are going to protect the wheat or the sugar industry, the industry must tell us what we will be doing for the next five to six years to ensure that the product concerned is competitive and is able to compete with the rest of the world. There is nothing unique in Malawi or Sudan that makes their sugar cheaper than ours that we can never do as a country. That is what this law does. I want to mention a few other products that have suffered the fate we are talking about here. There is Rivatex, KICOMI and other textile industries that went down because of a surge of imports such as mitumba. A law as this one will enable us put the required mechanism so that we can move on as a country."
}