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{
"id": 980621,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/980621/?format=api",
"text_counter": 232,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Belgut, JP",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Nelson Koech",
"speaker": {
"id": 13299,
"legal_name": "Nelson Koech",
"slug": "nelson-koech-2"
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"content": "Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, that is why it forms the basis of why we should have a body that directly deals with matters tea. The current AFA is really doing a disservice to the tea famers of this country. That is because it is only concentrating on coffee, cotton and rice farmers and yet, they get the bulk of the money they are using to run their operations from the tea sector. In fact, even the assets they are using were inherited from the former Tea Board of Kenya which was disbanded. We see them recommending to the President to inject more money to coffee, sugar-cane and cotton. Tea farmers have never got a single injection or booster to the sector. That is why I sincerely congratulate the sponsor of this Bill for creating a tea board to deal with tea issues. Let the AFA continue dealing with other issues. In fact, they have been ignoring tea farmers and yet, tea forms 26 per cent of the country’s export earnings. When I was young, I used to admire every year when farmers received tea bonuses, especially where I come from. Kericho used to have an outlet for Peugeot vehicles and many farmers from my region at that time, after the tea bonuses, used to drive very expensive cars. In fact, to date, the few Peugeots that I see belong to the farmers then. However, the problems that we have at the moment from my region are massive, and I think that cuts across the areas that grow tea. A whopping 75,000 cups of tea are drunk every second. You hear someone talking about why we have to create a body that entirely deals with tea. Tea is not like any other crop. It is not like honey or tomatoes. This is the largest crop that is grown in this country and sold and exported. As we are speaking, farmers are living in misery. For the reason that we have continued to receive low bonuses, last year in my constituency, I received the highest number of requests for consideration for bursaries. That is a great pointer to what is happening. Last year again, because of the rising cases of cancer, I went out of my way to pay National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) fees from my own pocket for 2,500 people who were well off and were paying for themselves. That tells you that if we do not rein in on the cartels in the tea sector, we have a problem going forward. Like Hon. Cecily Mbarire has pointed out, those are matters that are happening. The biggest cartel in the tea sector is KTDA itself. If you are talking about electoral injustices in this country, the biggest fraud in electoral injustice is KTDA. Imagine a shareholder is a factory. We want a situation where we have one-man, one-vote so that every farmer can make a decision on matters pertaining tea. Those are the things that I hope, going forward, with a few amendments, we will be able to address in this Bill. The Bill should give a place to KTDA. It is a bit hollow. It did not capture as much as I had expected. It has left KTDA hanging. All those amendments that we are going to make should now come in very clear and give the position of KTDA in this matter. The Bill will, therefore, need more input from the stakeholders particularly, like I did point out, in the electoral structures of KTDA. We are talking about a country that we want to industrialise. We have the Big Four Agenda. Coffee has gone. If we let tea go, we will have a problem. This Bill has come at the right time and I beseech all my colleagues in this House to look at it in a very positive way. We earn a lot of FOREX from tea. We export a lot of tea. Just come to Kericho and look at the beauty. Multinationals are reaping huge from my county but the farmer from the same county in my constituency has nothing. Why is the imbalance and yet, it is the same crop? With those many remarks, I support. Thank you very much."
}