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{
    "id": 763254,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/763254/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 180,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Wangwe",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2543,
        "legal_name": "Emmanuel Wangwe",
        "slug": "emmanuel-wangwe"
    },
    "content": "I want to address myself to the Sugar Development Levy, and about what my colleague of Mumias East, Hon. Washiali, has said. The Sugar Development Levy was a prime fund that was enabling farmers to access loans not only for cane development, but also for infrastructure. Today, when you go round the farms, you do not see any road that has been constructed for factory use. Since the Sugar Development Levy is now gone, we are not able to access the loans. Farmers are not able to borrow loans to buy fertiliser. Instead, they have to dig deeper into their pockets so that they can get the loans to buy fertiliser. There is also the concept of high pricing of fertilisers. Looking at the way fertiliser has been distributed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, whenever it comes, it is not addressing itself to sugar-cane farmers. I would want us not to commercialise and allow procurement of fertiliser to be at commercial rate now that most of the sugar-cane farmers are large-scale consumers of that product. There is the challenge of the 40 kilometre radius from one factory to another. We should address this concern to protect millers so that they also get funds to pay on time. Let us not allow introduction of new factories as and when the Government wants. You will find that a factory is built without a nucleus estate and nothing to hang on to. You will find one firm, a holding company, having four factories in one area. This is the kind of corruption that we are talking about. Why should you allow a holding company to have four factories and yet, the existing cane is not sufficient enough for the factories that we have?"
}