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{
    "id": 808137,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/808137/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 66,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Garissa Township, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Aden Duale",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 15,
        "legal_name": "Aden Bare Duale",
        "slug": "aden-duale"
    },
    "content": "tonnes of sugar during that window. This is more than the total amount of sugar imported into our country in the last six years as reflected on page 124 of the Economic Survey of 2018. If you allow me, I just want to take the House through the memory lane. In that Report, it indicates that the price of one kilogramme of sugar increased by 16.6 per cent from Kshs118 in 2018 to an average of Kshs137.8 in 2017. In the same Report, in 2017, merchandise trade deficit widened from Kshs853 billion in 2016 to Kshs1.1315 trillion. This was driven by the high import bill which grew by 20.5 per cent over the same period. The main drivers of the import bill were industrial machinery, petroleum products, motor vehicles, iron, animal and vegetable fats, oils and sugar. Expenditure on sugar doubled during the period from Kshs22 billion in 2016 to Kshs61 billion in 2017. There was an increase in import expenditure from Brazil on account of substantial import increase in sugar in that year 2017. Similarly, there were reductions in cane production and deliveries to factories in Western Kenya, which reduced drastically from 7.2 million tonnes in 2016 to 4.8 million tonnes in 2017. This was because of the importation and flooding in the sugar in the market. As we have agreed as a country, Parliament must rise to the occasion and defend the rights of the people of Kenya. The rights of people of Kenya will not be defended in the social media. Facts and figures will be tabled in this House. There are over 50 companies listed. The companies have imported 3,500 metric tonnes. There are companies like that of Mr. Rai that imported 184,000 metric tonnes. For the information of the House, when others were importing sugar using 50 kg sugar bags, Mr. Rai - and Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) must be held accountable – was importing sugar like sand. The ships were coming in bulk.The sugar was put in trucks like transporting clinker, the one used in making cement. Then the same sugar was put in go-downs like sand. That is where repackaging was done. Hon. Speaker, I want you to tell the two committees that they must go to the bottom of this. They must tell us the companies and their directors. If there is any sitting Member of Parliament, it must be said. Time has come that we should not sugar-coat corruption. We should not give people properties they do not own on social media. Let us help the good farmers of western Kenya. As a country, we cannot import 1,000,000 tonnes in a year. I have tabled the Economic Survey Report of 2018. Members must read it. With your permission, I want these documents to be used by the two committees concerned so that they can start their investigations. We must take to task the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS), Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) and the National Treasury. How did the Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS) that supplies the Certificate of Conformity (COC) allow contaminated sugar at the Port of Mombasa? We have KEBS, KEPHIS and the National Intelligence Service (NIS) at the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA). Even the Criminal Investigations Department officers are at the KPA. How did that sugar pass there? How was it cleared? All of us must support the President in the war against corruption and contraband goods."
}