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{
    "id": 86575,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/86575/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 397,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Munya",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for East African Community",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 279,
        "legal_name": "Joseph Konzolo Munyao",
        "slug": "joseph-munyao"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I was addressing you, but Waziri said something behind my back. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we need to increase the capacity of the tea factories. I want to give an example of where I come from because that is where I am sure of. One has to cover very many kilometers to reach the factory. That is one problem. The roads are very poor. Assessment has been done and there is need for an extra factory. Every day farmers ask for another factory to cater for other farmers because the one we have is not enough. We have gone to the KTDA which told us that we cannot afford to service a loan for that factory because we are already paying a loan for the expansion of the other factory. This is the case and yet every year we lose 30 per cent of the tea which we would have sold in order to finance another factory. Why can the Government not come in to solve that problem? Can the Government not give us a loan? Since the Government cannot invest in tea, but it can invest in other areas and tea farmers must always pay loans, why can it not guarantee us a loan in Muchimukuru so that we build another factory? That way, the 30 per cent of the tea that is lost will be processed and sold and we will be able to repay that loan. That is what this Bill does not address. There is even another rule that has been brought by the KTDA whereby the bigger you are in terms of the tea you grow, the more votes you have. In some factories we have only one farmer who can out-vote everybody else because what is being considered is the amount of tea he can bring to the factory. So, what has happened is that the tea farmers who own two acres or three acres are completely irrelevant in the KTDA system. Three farmers will determine who is elected. That is what happens where I come from. It may not be the same in some places. Where I come from some farmers have between100 acres and 400 acres under tea. Since his influence in the voting in the factory is great, those directors listen only to him. So, his tea will never rot in his farm because the director knows that if he does not collect all his tea and take it to the factory he is finished. This is because he is the guy who votes for him anyway. The other farmers, the poorest of them all who have few acres under tea, will have it rot in the farm while the single farmer is taken care of. I am simply saying that there is apartheid in the tea industry."
}