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{
    "id": 779778,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/779778/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 226,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "March 8, 2018 SENATE DEBATES 30 Sen. Ongeri",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, I represent a tea growing area where one of our major products is tea. Looking at this answer, it is quite telling that despite that fact that tea contributes four per cent of our GDP and, in fact, when you consider the agricultural sector as a standby sector, it contributes 15 per cent of the agricultural sector GDP. There are eight taxes levied by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) varying from Corporate Tax, Value added Tax (VAT), Import Declaration Tax (IDT), Furnace Oil Import Tax (FOIT), Vehicle Advanced Tax (VAT) and Motor Vehicle Inspection Booking Tax (MVIBT), all concerned in the chain of tea transportation. There is also Withholding Tax (WT) from dividends and fuel for agricultural duty operators. These are the taxes which are charged by the KRA. There are about 30 other taxes which are being charged on the tea value chain. These taxes are charged on the farmer who is the primary producer of the product. The question is: What is the Government doing to release and lessen the burden of taxes? At the end of the day, the benefactor is those at the tail end of the tea value chain. The supplier of the primary product, the green leaf before it goes to the factory, is given peanuts in terms of the green leaf payment. In fact, I have looked at the various multinationals and the KTDA and the current maximum green leaf fee paid to a farmer who has to apply fertilizer, prune the tea, employ pickers and do all manner of things to be able to put the tea on the table at the green level, is paid about Kshs15 to Ksh27, if one is lucky to be in one of these better paying multinationals. The figures I am giving you are correct because I am also tea farmer. What is the Government doing to enhance the profitability of tea to the primary supplier of the green leaf? If we do not give the farmer adequate employment, even the employment of workers that we have been talking about here today will be at zero level. They may run out of business because they are not making ends meet. This is an important subject and I welcome the Motion that was moved in this House. However, we need to look at what the tea farmer carries home at the end of the day. It looks as if he is labouring for everybody else. If you combine the 39 taxes on one primary commodity, I do not know what we want to call this."
}