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{
    "id": 843287,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/843287/?format=api",
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    "content": "disappears within the value chain where everybody is first paid and unfortunately, the last one to be paid is none other than the farmer without whom the rest of all these mandarins on the value chain would never have had anything to do in the first place. It is sad that these crooks came up with a term known as ‘bonus’ and it is now the season that they are giving it to farmers. What is a bonus? To the best of my understanding, a bonus in any corporate practice is that which is paid after the profit that a business has earned. What our farmers are given as bonus is their monthly dues that had been kept by someone for more than 12 months. They then pay them back without any explanation of where this money has been all along and without any passage of interest that the money has earned. After presentation of tea at the tea auction in Mombasa for nine days, money is remitted back to the factories that sold the particular tea. Therefore, if tea is sold today, nine days after, a factory will be paid all the dues by the brokers that exist in Mombasa yet these organizations that keep this amount of money will stay with it for a whole 12 months, then afterwards pass it on to the farmers as a bonus without any mention of the interest that has been earned by this amount of money having being kept out of circulation for a long time. That is why, if you remember, in the last Parliament, we debated a report that was stated clearly that out of the two collapsed banks, Imperial Bank and Chase Bank, the single largest institutional depositors who lost billions of shillings was none other than KTDA. That is taxpayers’ money that belongs to the poor farmers of Nyamira, represented by Sen. Okong’o Omogeni and of many other Senators that are here. However, nobody seems to have an answer or response. I humbly request my colleague Senators, who are in the House to give us an additional 60 days to look into the challenges that are still existing. We have come up with a draft legislation which was one of our terms of reference as a Committee and we are almost concluding. In fact, we may be able to do it in less than 60 days. The reason we thought about 60 days is so that if there is anything that comes up within that period of time, we shall address all these challenges once and for all, rise up as a House and support our poor impoverished farmers. Therefore, Madam Temporary Speaker, I plead with my colleagues to support us in this noble venture. I want to assure you that we shall not let the House down as a Committee. We shall do our best and in the long run, the poor tea farmers of this country will get justice. Once we are done with tea farmers, I am sure, many other players in the agricultural sector, for example, the small-scale older farmers that continue to be taken advantage of and manipulated by various brokers along the value chain from sugarcane, coffee, bananas and so many other small-scale farmers that are mismanaged because the Government does not seem to take keen interest in them, will finally get a spring of hope when they see the kind of work that we will do for the tea sector. Therefore, I request my colleagues to give us the due support. With those many remarks, I beg to move and request hon. Sen. Omogeni, Senator for Nyamira County to second."
}