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"id": 948631,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/948631/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Kibiru",
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"speaker": {
"id": 13196,
"legal_name": "Charles Reubenson Kibiru",
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"content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, a lot has been said about KTDA, the value chain and a number of things that need to be addressed. KTDA needs to put its house in order. We vividly remember that they made a wrong investment in the collapsed Imperial Bank and Chase Bank to a tune of close to Kshs4.9 billion. To date, only Kshs1.7 billion has been recovered. Mr. Speaker, Sir, as we make recommendations, we need to state that it is the responsibility of KTDA to ensure that it gets back and refunds farmers the money that it wrongly invested. They should deal with their own issues and challenges. It is on record that the same organisation has a lot of tax issues to deal with. The farmer should not bear the burden of mismanagement of KTDA. A small scale farmer in an acre of land in Kirinyaga would, probably, plant between 2,500 to 3,000 stems of tea. A good farmer would harvest about two kilograms per stem. On average, most of the small-scale famers are getting less than Kshs2 because of the husbandry and other challenges. If a farmer gets less than Kshs2, it means that they are unable to make ends meet. They can never break even. Mr. Speaker Sir, farming must be taken as a commercial entity. As leadership and as a Government, we must make a deliberate effort to ensure that we encourage farmers to take up farming as a business. This will ensure that we inform farmers: “When you want to plant tea, this is the bare minimum that you can go if you are to break even; this is the variety you need to plant. This is the kind of yield that they will get. Until you are able to meet that bare minimum, you cannot be able to make any money.” Mr. Speaker, Sir, in the old days when we were young, the richest families in Kirinyaga and probably in other areas where they grew tea including Meru, were both coffee and tea farmers. When we talk about foreign exchange, one wonders why the Government would allow tea to go down the direction it is taking. Why would they allow other crops like coffee to go down the way that it is? We know very well that the country does not have money to service the foreign debt. The country needs money to pay the huge debts that we have borrowed. The country needs to import essentials like fuel and others. It is incumbent on the current Government to make sure that tea farmers are supported so that we can continue getting the foreign exchange that we badly need. Mr. Speaker Sir, the other paradox is that some of the financial institutions including banks and Saccos like Fortune, Bingwa, and Greenfield Feathers, which the KTDA has come up with; subject farmers to a cycle of poverty. Farmers are advanced money based on how many kilogrammes they have. By the time the bonus comes, farmers have already spent their money in advance. In the old days, a farmer would not borrow money from an institution where they would be charged interest. They would probably go and put a promissory note to be given money to pay school fees for their children, or go to a shop in the village and take foodstuff like sugar and other essentials on credit to pay when the bonus comes. The multiple effect was the farmers would be able to get credit without necessarily incurring interest on the monies that they had borrowed. Today, we have a farmer who borrows Kshs100, 000 in advance and he is charged 30 per cent interest. Eventually, when the bonus comes, the farmer will pay Kshs100, 000 The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}