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{
    "id": 831117,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/831117/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 214,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Tongaren, FORD-K",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr.) Eseli Simiyu",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 141,
        "legal_name": "David Eseli Simiyu",
        "slug": "david-eseli"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. Since the debate started, everybody has supported the Bill. However, I want to alert the House that this is a wrong-headed legislation. I do not fear standing alone on this one. I stood alone in this House in the 11th Parliament and warned the country about the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) while everybody was supporting. I want to alert you that this legislation is headed in the wrong direction. You will completely finish the small farmers. We will clear them completely with this legislation from where the NCPB left them. It is like somebody set out to make a three-legged stool but forgot to put on the third leg and so, that stool cannot stand. This law cannot help the farmer in this country, unless there are guaranteed minimum returns for the farmer. If the farmer takes his grain to that storage and waits for the prices to stabilise and then they sell the grain on his behalf and he gets the money, how have you guaranteed that farmer that the prices will not fall further? They will put the grain in those stores. The importers, who are influential enough to get the National Treasury to open up importation as much as they want, will import that grain and flood the market. That farmer will suffer. It might work for the large- scale farmer who for example, has 1,000 or more bags of maize. This might be useful for that farmer. The problem of the small-scale farmer who only gets about 50 or 70 bags a year is cash. It is not storage. The moment he harvests, he dries the grain, sells it and gets money. That is the only money he gets in a whole year to pay fees for his children and pay hospital bills. That farmer has no time to take this grain to be stored somewhere and wait for the prices to improve. What will the farmer do? He will take it there and instruct them to sell it immediately. That will not benefit that farmer. He will sell it at that low price. That farmer cannot wait. This does not help that farmer. This Bill helps the businessmen who have been fleecing the farmers all along. They are behind this Bill. They want to now be licensed with warehouses so that they can now fleece the farmer legally with the backing of the law. That way, the small-scale farmer who has 50 bags will be forced to take his maize there. He cannot wait. The person who will eventually profit is that warehouse owner who will pay that farmer quickly. We are legalising those fellows who keep on damaging the roads in my constituency with huge lorries. Currently, they are carrying away the maize and, in the process, damaging my roads. Now we are legalising them to construct a warehouse and do it properly. This legislation is headed in the wrong direction and should be thrown out. If we want to rectify the situation of farmers in this country, let us look at subsidies for farmers. Western countries subsidise their farmers to ensure that food becomes cheap and affordable for everybody. They are subsidised to the extent that they continue planting that food and are paid for it so that if it is in the market, it is enough for everybody and the price goes down. For us, instead of looking in that direction, we are even importing fertiliser and calling it subsidised fertiliser when it is just stones. It is fake! We are messing up the farmer. This same House agreed The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}