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{
    "id": 86144,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/86144/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 345,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Yinda",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 154,
        "legal_name": "Edwin Ochieng Yinda",
        "slug": "edwin-yinda"
    },
    "content": "At the moment, the tea factories are allowed to sell tea privately. They are allowed. The law allows them. But they cannot because when you make deals with private people, those are the areas where corruption creeps in. When you are making a deal between two people, I would give you this price, give me your tea. Nobody else is really there to determine whether that price you are being given is the correct market price. But when you go to the auction, everybody is looking for the tea. Everybody will get that tea at the price they want if they want it. That is why the benchmark for tea in the world is through the auction system. That is a practice in the whole world. Therefore, I do not think Kenya can function alone in the tea market. We are not the only country producing or selling tea in the world. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, going back to the KTDA and the quality of tea it produces, at the moment, we have many international companies based in Kenya that also produce tea. I will only mention a few. They are Unilever, George Williamson, James Finlay, Nandi Teas and Eastern Produce. All these firms sell tea through the auction but the KTDA tea still fetches better prices than tea from foreign countries. We also have local private companies that sell tea in the auction. They include Karirana Tea Factory, Maramba Tea Factory, Kiptagich Tea Factory and Kaisugu Tea Factory. These factories are run independently and privately. However, if you look at the prices of tea in the auction every week, you will find that the KTDA still comes at the top because its products are still better than any other product that we produce. This is because of their strict restrictions in their picking system. They have a system of picking a leaf and a bud. When this type of tea is processed, you get very good quality tea. This is unlike the foreign producers who even use machines to harvest tea. By doing so, they pick all the “rubbish”. Of course, you do not expect that to make good tea. So, we may have problems with the KTDA but let us deal with the problems and the issue of restructuring rather than looking at ways of killing what is actually working. Incidentally, there are many foreign countries such as Sri Lanka, India, Nigeria and South Africa which send their people to Kenya to study the operations of the KTDA. They ask: “What is this magic that you have?” This is because they have failed in their countries to have the small-scale farmers do as well as ours in Kenya. We cannot just overlook that fact. All these things are happening because of the success story. We have had many Government institutions, for example, the Pyrethrum Board of Kenya, the Kenya Co-operative Creameries (KCC), the Kenya Farmers Association (KFA) and the Kenya Planters Co-operative Union (KPCU) which have been destroyed because of mismanagement and application of wrong policies. The only sub-sector that is working is that of tea and it is because there is discipline in the tea business. Why? It is because of what was started by the Government in the name of the KTDA which has worked well. I, therefore, totally disagree that we should look at ways of destroying what is actually working. I am also told that there are feelings that we should have more marketing companies to market tea. When you talk about marketing tea, 40 per cent of the tea is from the private section and the Government has no control over it. They already have their managers. They manage their tea themselves. The rest of the tea is sent to the auction to be sold. So, when we talk of liberalizing the market, what are we talking about? Are we talking about liberalizing the marketing which the KTDA does? If that is the case, why should a farmer destroy his own equipment? The KTDA belongs to the small-scale farmers. It is neither a private company nor an individual’s company. So, why should they allow a foreigner or another private company to come and sell their products and yet they have the capacity to do it themselves? If they have a problem, why do we not sort it out? Why do we not restructure the KTDA so that it becomes effective and productive to the farmer? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I support the Ministry fully for introducing this Bill. I am very sure that if we pass this Bill, the tea trade in Kenya will grow even bigger than it has done before. Tea in Kenya is a success story because we produce good tea. However, let us not be misled that we are the only producers of tea. If the conditions are not conducive to the buyers, they will go somewhere else to buy tea. So, when we have everybody looking at Kenya as a leader in the production of tea, let us welcome that with good rules that will embrace the brotherhood within the region and our partners who are buyers of the Kenyan tea. We have functions here every year. There was one held last week when we had a dinner hosted for the tea producers and buyers. There were representatives from countries that buy our tea. Up to now, the story is: “We want to emulate what is going on in Kenya because it is a sweet story.” With regard to control of the cess money as presented in the Bill, I support it with minor amendment. It will be good if the Minister specified exactly what out of that money will do what. For example, on roads, how much will we use out of that cess to do the roads within the tea farms? How much will we use on research? It is because of research that Kenyan tea shot up. It used to work, but right now they cannot because they do not have enough funds to do research. We need more research so that we can bring in tea that takes shorter time to produce. At the moment, tea takes much longer to produce. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to support the Bill."
}