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{
    "id": 980077,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/980077/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 323,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nyaribari Chache, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Richard Tong’i",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2611,
        "legal_name": "Richard Nyagaka Tongi",
        "slug": "richard-nyagaka-tongi"
    },
    "content": "a difference in terms of the way tea factories and processes are managed in Kenya to ensure that farmers get value for money. Hon. Deputy Speaker, I am a product of tea benefits. My parents are peasant farmers. They grow tea bushes. Tea bushes were able to take us through school in my family of almost 10 people, from one mother. That was not a mean achievement. The fact that the same bushes cannot support even one child today is a clear indicator that things have gone from bad to worse. If they were able to support us those many years ago, there must be something which is not happening today which has made the earnings from tea to come down. In my constituency, there are many factories. There is the Rianyamwamu Tea Factory which is a small factory that was started recently. For a long time, we have been paying for it. Since I was a child, there were deductions going towards rebuilding that factory. To date, some farmers are still paying for it. We do not know how much it costs the KTDA to construct a factory. We need to hold them to account for some of the things they do because they affect the farmers directly. We need to also have a cap on how much money they use for operational expenses. KTDA cannot be given an open-ended cheque where they decide how much they will use to pay for operational expenses. They already have subsidiary companies which should be used to support the operational expenses. They have an insurance company, a brokerage firm and many other departments which should be earning them a lot of money to support and ensure that whatever money they get from tea sales are paid directly to the farmer. That was the original intention of having those subsidiary companies. It does not seem to be working that way. We need to help them to clean up their house, otherwise, it is time we restructured the KTDA and ensured that the farmer who was meant to gain from it is getting value for money. We also need to come up with regional boards so that we leave the national board to come up with policies, research, new products and new seedlings which can give us better yields than what we have at the moment. If you do not have a department of research and development, the future is not guaranteed. All over the world, companies which have invested and succeeded over the years are those which have invested in research and development. We urge the KTDA to do exactly that. As I wind up, we also want the Government to guarantee a minimum return on tea just like we want to do for other products. Countries which have succeeded are those which support the farmers. Kenya is an agricultural country. Our economy depends on agriculture. To ensure that farmers who are at the grassroots have money in their pockets, it is only fair that we guarantee them some income so that when a farmer delivers his tea, he or she knows for sure that on this one I have so much. They are, therefore, able to plan and budget for their families and provide for them. I know my colleagues have a lot of interest in this. There are many things I would have said about tea because it is a very sensitive and emotive topic for all of us. It is changing people’s lives back home. I want to be fair to my colleagues and donate a few minutes to them so that they can speak to this. I support the Bill with the amendment that we have regional boards which will be in charge of local issues and management of local factories because they understand them much more since they come from that region. We will then have the KTDA at the national level dealing with national issues, policies and research so that they come up with better seeds which will give us better yields for the good of the country. Our economy depends on it. With that I support the Bill. 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."
}