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{
    "id": 770947,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/770947/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 183,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Oyoo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2408,
        "legal_name": "James Onyango Oyoo",
        "slug": "james-onyango-oyoo"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for considering me at this opportune moment because sugarcane growing and processing is the domain of Muhoroni Constituency. We grow a lot of sugarcane. We are home to the main sugar factories and if they are effectively run, there would be no cause for alarm with regard to sugar shortages and, therefore, no opportunities for the ever- emerging cartels in our nation. It would suffice for this House to know that recently we had a caucus of leaders from the sugarcane-growing areas meeting in Kisumu. We deliberated on most of the issues which have been articulated in this Motion. I want to report that I was elected as the interim Chairman of the Sugar Caucus and my colleague the Member for Parliament for Tinderet, Hon. Kibiwott Melly is my secretary. Most of the fears which have been articulated in this Motion have been addressed. I want to inform Members that last week, Hon. Melly and I paid a courtesy call to the Cabinet Secretary (CS) for Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries and we found out that he is on the verge of effectively addressing some of the fears in this Motion. This will be done when the Sugar Regulation Act is gazetted. When we were in Kisumu the CS assured us that he was going to gazette the Act. When he took time, we called on him last week and we realised that he had bumped into some hitch. He said he would also include those issues in the Commodities Bill. Again, some farmers had taken the Government to court because they did not want the Act regarding the coffee industry to be gazetted. The CS agreed that he was going to pull out and make sure that the Sugar Act was gazetted solely as such. I believe that is still the case because he has not come back to us to tell us that he is encountering any encumbrances or hitches. Once this is done, most of the challenges which have been articulated in this Motion will be addressed. It is going to deal with the sugarcane poachers because the new Act will act effectively on zoning. This will stop the helicopter farmer or miller from Awendo from going to Muhoroni to buy sugarcane at a determined cost to the detriment of the local millers. The zoning will ensure that the new licensed factories take into consideration the fact that they are far away from farmers and that they are enthusiastic in developing their own sugarcane. In the past we have had many fully fledged privately owned factories drawing money from the Sugar Board of Kenya ostensibly for sugarcane development. They have not been using the money to develop any cane or to contract farmers. All they do is pay farmers frivolously, take their sugarcane, mill 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."
}