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{
    "id": 821327,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/821327/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 221,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, as we discuss the payment of farmers, we must restructure NCPB. The cartels have seized NCPB. We appreciate NCPB as an infrastructure across the country, but it is being run down. It is not working as Sen. Wetangula said. It is being used for other purposes. In Lessos, Chesumei, Kipkareni sub counties, there are NCPB infrastructures that are not being used for the purpose for which they were established. We have the necessary infrastructure, but lethargy is the problem. Madam Temporary Speaker, yesterday, the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation released Kshs1.4 billion. Interestingly, the CEO of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) is cautioning against the payment. Do these people want to pay farmers when they are dead and buried? Is this a case of dancing on the graves of farmers with their own pain that they have undergone? It is very unfortunate that EACC knows that Kshs1.4 billion that was released is not even sufficient to pay our farmers. However, they have the audacity to say; can you hold and do not pay. How are we operating in this country? These agencies work for the Government. If they need to do cautionary measures, they should sue, but allow the farmers to be paid promptly. Madam Temporary Speaker, our farmers’ maize is ready. We are supposed to deliver it in the next two months to the same NCPB. Unfortunately, the same farmers whose crops are ready have not sold what is in their stores. Now we have cartels, middlemen and brokers yet the EACC has an audacity to stop the payments to small-scale farmers. Some are owed Kshs50,000 and Kshs20,000, respectively. Our farmers are struggling to manage blood pressure and diabetes as a result of frustrations. Others are at risk of heart attacks which might lead to stroke. Others are unable to service their loans which they borrowed to plant maize. Their children are no longer going to school. They are at home. Wives have run away from their husbands because there is nothing to eat in that house. It is so painful. Madam Temporary Speaker, it is sad to see Government agencies fighting each other instead of complimenting each other to ensure farmers are paid. What is hard for the EACC to know that Sen. Wetangula supplied maybe 5,000 maize bags? These are his details, bank account and pay the money unless the EACC and NCPB are telling us some people were planning to pay ghost farmers. We demand that the maize farmers across this country be paid immediately, so that they can service their loans and take their children back to school. We are entering into the season of national examinations. Many of the children are at home because of lack of school fees. Farmers cannot sustain themselves. Madam Temporary Speaker, the NCPB is synonymous with mediocrity and lethargy. We should even change the name NCPB to something like GCK or something else. They said if you want to kill a dog, you give it a bad name. Therefore, that is another issue. We need to make NCPB more competitive so that they push an agenda of commercial interest. I am aware that the strategic grain reserve storage is1.8 million metric tonnes. A million bags worth Kshs3 billion has been declared unfit for human consumption because of aflatoxin. How safe and fit for Kenyans is our 1.8 million metric tonnes that is meant for strategic grain reserve? 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."
}