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{
    "id": 96296,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/96296/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 112,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Kenyatta",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 168,
        "legal_name": "Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta",
        "slug": "uhuru-kenyatta"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, the Government is expanding areas under rice irrigation. Last year, we expanded the Mwea Irrigation Scheme. This year, we are actually applying a further Kshs9 billion to expand rice production in this country. Under the Economic Stimulus Package (ESP), we are bringing new areas under maize production through irrigation. We had a major programme last year of enhancing fertilizer and seed delivery to our farmers. The Government is doing all these in an attempt to support our farmers and also to be a food secure country. In the interim, we cannot impose higher rates when member countries are not producing adequately. Our first negotiation point when we started was to maintain a tariff rate of 35 per cent. I said before that it was impossible to maintain that with the coming into force of the Common Market because other countries would have insisted on maintaining a zero rate for their imports. This would have resulted in those countries importing at a zero rate, milling in their respective countries and delivering to Kenya, and we would have had no reason to stop them. Is that really the way we would have protected the farmers? So, the 10 per cent we got was in itself no mean achievement because the neighbouring countries wanted it to be at zero rate, given the fact that the region was not producing enough. Our first point of call was 35 per cent. If we had stood at that while Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi wanted to maintain the zero rate, that would not have supported our farmers. We felt that by achieving the rate of 10 per cent to be applied throughout the region, it was the best way to protect our farmers."
}