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{
    "id": 775327,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/775327/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 277,
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    "content": "is not defined. We do not want a situation where, if you come to the sugar belt where I come from, even a farmer who has not gone to school knows something called DR. You plant your sugarcane, weed the farm, re-weed it, harvest and deliver them. When a farmer goes for payment he or she is given a piece of paper written DR, meaning you have nothing to go home with. The DR stands for ‘debit’ the opposite of CR which stands for ‘credit’. So, you go there after looking after your sugarcane farm for three years – it ought to be two years but sometimes it goes up to 36 months – then you are given a DR and told to go home. Madam Temporary Speaker, when we are at home, farmers come to us every other day and tell us that they delivered their sugarcane and got a DR. This is very sad. All these things have been happening because of poor management systems. You find that people who are not even farmers are the richest from farming by short-changing farmers on the weights of their farm produce such as tea, maize, sugarcane et cetera . Any laws we pass must seal all these loopholes. Another issue is on the prescribed fees and other charges payable for the examination, inspection, issuance and renewal of registration on licence of the Act. Again, do we want to go private or public? This is because I would have expected that, perhaps, this regulation would help and obligate counties, particularly those where cereals and serious trading is done to operate these warehouses to cut down on costs. When you bring in private investors, they are profit driven and they do not quite care about helping the farmers. But if it is the units of devolution, they will be able to help the farmers. The power of the Council is to administer and control assets of the Council in a manner or for such purposes as best, to promote the interest for which the Council is established. Again, this council is not there to own property; it is there for management and preservation of cereals. You will be pushing them into the situation where they are now; competing to buy property. It is like what the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) did. In some yesteryears, the NSSF instead of holding the money for pensioners, they were buying lands everywhere. Now we have people on the streets who retired six, seven or ten years back and they cannot get their pensions. They were not buying land because they needed it. They were buying land because they were holding private interests. The moment you allow these councils to start buying property left, right and center, they forget their core business. What are we setting them up to do? We are not setting them up to buy land or to own streets; their core business is to help the farmer. This is what it should be. This provision should be re-looked at and recast to reflect the philosophy for which we will legislate. Madam Temporary Speaker, Clause 8 deals with the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of this Council. The issue of education that I have just talked about also ought to be refined. Clause 8(3) states that:- “A person is qualified for appointment as the Chief Executive Officer of the Council if such a person- (a)holds a degree from a recognized university in Kenya; (b) has relevant experience in management; and The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate"
}