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{
    "id": 786399,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/786399/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 280,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen.Wetangula",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Minority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 210,
        "legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
        "slug": "moses-wetangula"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Madam Temporary Speaker, for these few minutes to contribute to this Motion. I had given my undertaking to the distinguished Senator for Kericho when he was mooting the idea, that I would be here to support him. This is because tea production has for a long time been the main contributor to our economy. At one time it was the number one foreign exchange earner sharing from time to time the same slot with tourism and now floriculture and horticulture. The people who work in the tea sector and the management of the tea industry - as my colleagues before me have said - require a major surgery. This is because we have, on one hand the big corporates like James Finlay who have a seamless flow of management and profits - never mind how they exploit our poor workers - something the Committee will also have to look at. I speak this because whether you go to Kericho, Nandi Hills, Murang’a, Limuru or wherever, in all parts of the country, you find 60-70 per cent of the workers there are from the “ Mulembe nation”. I would want to see that everybody involved in the tea industry gets their just returns. Over-taxation is a problem. The other day, we saw a governor waking up in the morning and imposing heavy tax on tea passing through the Port of Mombasa. We need some synchrony in the taxation regime between the national and county governments so that the farmer is not hurt in the process. Madam Temporary Speaker, more importantly, the cartels that run Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) are the ones that have caused a serious disadvantage and problems to the farmers. There is a group of people who have become a fixture in everything that happens in the tea industry. KTDA is supposed to help the farmer. It is an investment of the farmer. In the old days, farmers used to earn very good bonuses. You may recall the scandals that are always there when girls from Koinange Street are in Kericho, Nandi Hills or Kapsabet, when bonus is paid in order to ‘help the farmers spend their money quickly’."
}