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{
    "id": 979995,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/979995/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 241,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kiambu CWR, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Ms.) Gathoni Wamuchomba",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13244,
        "legal_name": "Gathoni Wamuchomba",
        "slug": "gathoni-wamuchomba"
    },
    "content": " Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to contribute. Indeed, I have waited for a while because I felt that I have a duty to add my voice in the making of this Bill, so that our farmers can benefit from very hard-earned money that comes from tea. This Bill is creating an avenue into the creation of the regulatory Tea Authority of Kenya. The word regulatory makes me feel like we are going around in circles because this is not the first time we are regulating cash crops. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, allow me to say that the Government is not known to be the best trader. Every cash crop that the Government puts its tentacles in, in the attempt to trade, that crops trade attracts changes and the changes affect the farmers. Look at coffee, pyrethrum, sugar, cotton and all the other cash crops which the Government has attempted to regulate their trade. The Government is not the champion when it comes to trade matters. Therefore, every time we come into this House in attempt to create boards, authorities, taskforces and such like frameworks to help the farmers improve their revenue and earnings, we always get it wrong. I do not know why we assume that our farmers are illiterate to the extent that they cannot on their own trade in cash crops. Like Hon. Ngunjiri said, those farmers take their own initiative to go to their farms. They plant, they use their knowledge to farm and produce. Why do we assume that they do not have the knowledge to manage their own trade? Now, when I look at this Bill, I am not so sure whether I want to support or oppose it. This is because, as I read it yesterday and I have tried to assimilate it today, this proposal is not answering questions that I would want answered on behalf of the farmers of Kiambu. Let us ask ourselves what issues make the farmer go home empty handed after rising up at 3 a.m. to go and pick tea in their farms, in sunshine and during rainfall. In the past, the many authorities and the many boards that have been created have installed a lot of levies to the farmers. The Kenyan farmers, especially those involved in tea farming, have lost money to the Government agencies through marketing licenses, marketing agency fees, corporate taxes, market research levy, county government cess and many other deductions like advances for fertilisers and advances for farming inputs. When the farmers do their mathematics, they end up earning very little. Therefore, as a lawmaker, we are proposing to have a new regulator away from AFA. Are we removing all those levies that have been deducted from farmers’ income in the past? Are we 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."
}