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{
    "id": 978978,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/978978/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 184,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nambale, ANC",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Sakwa Bunyasi",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2511,
        "legal_name": "John Sakwa Bunyasi",
        "slug": "john-sakwa-bunyasi"
    },
    "content": "copied from Kenya. They even brought scientists from Kenya who worked with them. Many other countries learnt from Kenya. We also had the development of cultivars, which are now well known in the industry and have been researched on and written about. All this was fully developed in Kenya. Those were the days when all of that research was done within the context of the resources of the industry, with the national Government playing a regulatory role to ensure that they found a sanitary site and other regulations that conformed to international standards. The role was limited, and it kept the national Budget small. In this Bill, there is no attempt to reign-in on what might turn out to be the size of the Tea Board of Kenya (TBK). There is no clarity as to who exactly is meeting the bill. We are treating all farmers as if they are poor, which is a big mistake. We should internalise this, and the national Government should put in additional resources over and above this because there are areas that are out of reach of the Board and the capacity of farmers. It should not simply be because the crop earns us foreign exchange; we shall put in the money that it takes. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, we should be looking at the future as well. The future is not going to be rosy for the tea crop. That is for sure. What is going to make us rich is services, new crops — like we have done in the case of… Who knew that Kenya would become one of the most significant suppliers of cut flowers? In fact, we were the second-biggest supplier in the world. I do not know whether we are still the second-biggest or we have moved to position one. We were competing with countries like Holland and Chile. That was not because there was a board, but sufficient entrepreneurship that had flourished from the industry that looked out for resources, both financial and material. Much as we want to set up a Tea Board, we may be setting up a perimeter wire around the capacity of the institutions and growers. We may be disenfranchising farmers in putting up their own initiatives because everything was to go via the Board. The Board is a bureaucracy as they all tend to be. The Bill recommends that we shall have four farmers representatives on the Board – two from the Eastern Zone and two from the Western Zone. Why not just have two? Why do you want to have four? If you want to have gender parity, you can appoint one male representative from one zone and put the female representative from the other zone. Why are we increasing the expenses of the Board that is going to have to be carried, unfortunately, not by farmers but by the State? This means the cost curved out of the State will go one direction, and the reality of the earnings of the crop may go another direction. We need to seriously look into this matter. We need to have lean boards. This is too big of a Board. This is typical of boards, where people go in to make an income. There will be in- fighting about who will be appointed to make what money. Since the chair will be a presidential appointee, who gets what patronage and so on? That is not what this country needs in the agriculture sector. We should have a leaner Board to deal largely with regulatory matters and allow tea growers, like the coffee growers, to look for their own identify markets and produce products in the factories that meet those market needs. That is what has helped the coffee sector a bit. If we do not do that, we will administer this sector using civil service processes. I do not see it being the savior of the tea industry. All the noises we hear now are that we helped this crop; we will not help the other crop. Most of our tea is exported much less than coffee in regards to ratio but, what is exported has been in speciality markets. This is not going to be done by a team of civil servants who move from one delegation to another. This will be done by farmers themselves, who invest their money. We need to have institutional arrangements that will allow this to happen. Looking at the proposed Board, as I said, I see a perimeter wall being built The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}