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{
    "id": 843304,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/843304/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 279,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13165,
        "legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
        "slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
    },
    "content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, I thank colleagues who have expressed their support for this Motion and the many concerns that they have shared with us. I was keenly listening and taking notes and I was wondering whether they too share the concerns that I have. This is a burden and I hope many of my colleagues who serve with me in the Committee have taken it with a lot of zeal and seriousness. I believe that at the end of the 60 days, we shall come up with good legislative proposals that, upon their passage in this House, tea farmers of this Republic will smile again. Madam Temporary Speaker, I know that where you went to school is not far from the county that I represent. If you can remember, Peugeot, the Automobile Company, used to have a dealership in Kericho County where at times like now, when farmers are paid their bonuses, they would walk into the dealership and get out with brand new vehicles. I would wish to inform you that that dealership closed down long time ago because of the suffering that tea farmers continue to face because the market has crashed. Nobody seems to be enjoying it yet it is the leading foreign exchange earner in this country. Sometimes, it just baffles how the Government mistreats the very people that give it the livelihood that it badly needs. Today, we heard the news of how the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has removed the standby credit facility that they normally offer to this country. Apart from that one by the IMF, the other big one that this country is left with is the Foreign Exchange Reserve that we earn from the tea auction in Mombasa. If we continue to leave this sector as it is without a regulator--- If you remember, back then, for you to have a license to open a tea factory, you were supposed to justify where you would get the tea leaves for processing in the factory. Nowadays, so long as you have access to the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation and Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Authority (AFFA), you get a license to set up a factory and leave farmers to compete. Most of our farmers are poor and they do not have a choice because they have been impoverished. They take their tea leaves to each and every factory such that at the end of it all, they have delivered everywhere but when you cumulatively put it together, it still does not make economic sense. It is my utmost and sincerest plea to this House. Thank you for the concerns you have shared with us. We shall take this exercise with a lot of seriousness and bring back to this House a report of the challenges together with the proposed ways of addressing them to ensure that once again we have a thriving industry in the tea sector. Madam Temporary Speaker, with those many remarks, I thank you."
}