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{
    "id": 763302,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/763302/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 228,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Rono",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13367,
        "legal_name": "Daniel Kipkogei Rono",
        "slug": "daniel-kipkogei-rono"
    },
    "content": "and Chemelil sugar companies, the story has been the same - the problem of payment to farmers. Many parliaments have come and gone; people have come to Parliament and left and the problems are still there. We need to bring this matter and this song to a stop. Let this House - the 12th Parliament - go on record as having solved those problems about sugar-cane growing. We should not be singing the song year in, year out. We know the problems. We know the people who have mismanaged sugar factories. Some of them are billionaires in this country. They are moving around freely and yet the farmer is suffering. You have heard of a gentleman, an Hon. Member, who has been a sugar-cane farmer since 2004 and yet, he has been suffering all along. I know of a farmer who has been farming 10 acres of land and yet, he has been living in a mud house for the last 22 years. It is a very sad affair. Hon. Members, we have occasionally politicised the sugar industry. Take for example the other day when the Government wanted to privatise several sugar factories, political leaders met left, right and centre and no solution was arrived at. Even our governors had to go to court with regard to the same problem. I suggest that we deal with the sugar-cane farmer the way we deal with tea, coffee and rice farmers. Why do we deal with sugar-cane farmers in a different way? Farmers have suffered and we all know that fact. We come here, sing this song and repeat it. We will continue doing the same even after this and the sugar-cane farmer will continue to suffer. Let us go on record and let a decision be made by this House once and for all. Let us not continue singing the song of the sugar-cane farmer. Like I have said, if you look at the sugar factories at the moment, say, Nzoia and Chemelil, they do have similar problems. Now even Mumias has the same disease. It did not have that disease the other day. Now we are talking about it. The other day it was paying people dividends but now, there are no dividends. Where are we going? We also have the issue of quality. Farmers do not have the right quality of sugar-cane. Sometimes when they take their sugar to the factory, the prices they attract are very low. So, we need to look at that issue. We also need to look at the element of irrigation in sugar-cane areas. Does this country require sugar-cane to be grown locally? We cannot have people suffering because of growing sugar-cane. If their suffering will go away by not growing sugar-cane, then so be it. Let this House solve this problem once and for all and let us treat the sugar-cane farmer the way we treat farmers of other crops."
}