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{
"id": 1431831,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1431831/?format=api",
"text_counter": 205,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Tigania West, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) John Mutunga",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Hon. Deputy Speaker, from the above observations, the Committee recommended that in future related interventions where the Government has to intervene in form of subsidies, there should be a clear interpretation layout of the Executive Order and the implementation arrangements clearly laid out for information to the actors as well as for those who may have questions to get the correct answers. We also concluded that the Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
},
{
"id": 1431832,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1431832/?format=api",
"text_counter": 206,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Tigania West, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) John Mutunga",
"speaker": null,
"content": "and Livestock Development should submit a report to the National Assembly within three months of adoption of this Report by the House, explaining the following: 1. The departure from what is interpreted as the President’s focus on subsidising maize flour prices through duty waivers to what the Ministry decided to do by paying off the millers to produce and sell the maize flour. 2. How the decision to implement the programme for a period of one month was arrived at. 3. Why the programme was implemented a month to the general elections. 4. The actions that the Ministry took after several prompts by Cereal Millers’ Association (CMA) on the maize and wheat situation in the country and globally, and the reasons for inaction. This is because there were quite a number of inactions. 5. Why a certain group of millers appeared to have been favoured in terms of payment compared to other millers. 6. Why the Ministry did not adopt the proposals made by the Attorney-General on the contract. 7. Why CMA was given preference over other millers with regard to the introductory engagements and meetings prior to implementation of the maize flour subsidy programme for Financial Year 2022/2023. 8. Why the Ministry prefers not to clear subsidy-related debts as pending bills that accrue interest from those processes. We note with concern that there is a pending bill for Financial Year 2017/2018 maize subsidy programme and another pending bill for Financial Year 2022/2023, among others. We also recommend that the Auditor-General conduct an audit of the Maize Flour Subsidy Programme for Financial Year 2022/2023 to ascertain whether there was prudent use of public resources and submit a report to the National Assembly within three months of the adoption of this Report by the House. In addition, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) should conduct investigations on the following: 1. Whether the Subsidy Programme achieved the intended objective. 2. Quality and quantity of the maize flour produced under the programme, the price of the flour and where it was sold. 3. If the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government submitted a report to the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development and Co-operatives on the delivery of subsidised maize flour to the last mile. 4. That the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) was paid Ksh100 million as monitoring and evaluation fee, but did not submit the report to the Committee on the market surveillance they made. An investigation should be conducted on whether NCPB conducted their role in the Subsidy Programme as expected, and how that money was used. 5. Investigate the milling companies as they were to establish whether the flour that was said to have been supplied under the Subsidy Programme was actually milled, and how much of it was milled. In its preliminary Report on the Maize Flour Subsidy Programme 2022/2023, the Departmental Committee on Agriculture and Livestock recommended that the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock Development and Fisheries should proceed to pay the Grain Mill Owners’ Association (GMOA) their dues - a balance of around Ksh432 million they were owed. We The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
},
{
"id": 1431833,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1431833/?format=api",
"text_counter": 207,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Tigania West, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) John Mutunga",
"speaker": null,
"content": "recommended that this amount should be put in the subsequent national budget because some of the millers are collapsing as a result of debts they are unable to pay. Further, 82.17 per cent of the total maize flour that was produced under the Subsidy Programme by CMA could not be traced to the consumers based on the distribution channels, despite passing through the normal distribution channels. The Committee recommends that the DCI conducts an investigation into this mater and present their findings to the National Assembly within three months of the adoption of this Report by the House. The National Assembly will make recommendations on whether or not the money owed to CMA should be paid, and whether to ratify or regularise payments made to the association through use of Article 223 of the Constitution or not. We also recommend that the independent millers who participated in that programme be investigated by the DCI to find out why they participated without going through an association if they ever milled any maize flour at all, and what processes they passed the maize flour through. This will help us regularise the payments that were made through Article 223 of the Constitution. Hon. Deputy Speaker, I thank the Offices of the Speaker and the Clerk of the National Assembly for the logistical support they accorded to this Committee during its many days sittings and travels across the country to collect this information and produce a Report. The Committee further wishes to thank the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, the CMA, the GMOA and the independent millers for making this inquiry feasible through their submissions. Finally, I express my appreciation to Members of the Committee on Agriculture and Livestock for the work they have done to come up with this Report. With those few remarks, I wish to move that this House adopts the Report and call upon my Vice-Chairman, Hon. Brighton Yegon, Member for Konoin Constituency, to second. Thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker."
},
{
"id": 1431834,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1431834/?format=api",
"text_counter": 208,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Deputy Speaker",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Have you got a Seconder? Okay, proceed."
},
{
"id": 1431835,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1431835/?format=api",
"text_counter": 209,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Konoin, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Brighton Yegon",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Hon. Deputy Speaker, I rise to second the Motion. During the consideration of Supplementary Estimates I of Financial Year 2023, members of the Departmental Committee on Agriculture and Livestock observed that Ksh7.267 billion had been spent on the maize flour subsidy programme, out of which Ksh4 billion was paid under Article 223 of the Constitution, while Ksh3.267 billion was yet to be paid. The Ksh4 billion was spent in July 2022 and presented to the Committee for regularisation through the Supplementary Estimates as required by Article 223 of the Constitution. The Committee did not approve the expenditure on account of non-disclosure of information on who the maize flour suppliers were, the quantity of maize flour supplied, the areas in which the subsidised flour was supplied, and the retail outlets that sold the maize flour. Hon. Deputy Speaker, it is for the above reasons that the Committee resolved to conduct an inquiry into the maize flour subsidy program to find out whether the program achieved its objectives, establish whether the identification process of the millers was free and fair, and whether there was value for money in the execution of the program. Hon. Deputy Speaker, the Departmental Committee on Agriculture and Livestock tabled a preliminary Report of the inquiry in the House on Wednesday, 7th June 2023. The Committee's Report was adopted by the House on Thursday, 3rd August 2023 with the following recommendations: 1. The Ksh500 million owed to members of the Grain Mill Owners Association (GMOA) should be factored in the budget estimate for the Financial Year 2023/2024 and paid because their computation was clear. The membership of the The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
},
{
"id": 1431836,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1431836/?format=api",
"text_counter": 210,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Konoin, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Brighton Yegon",
"speaker": null,
"content": "association that participated in the program was static and they did not participate in maize flour subsidy program for Financial Year 2017/2018. 2. The Ksh841,784,292 paid to GMOA under Article 223 of the Constitution was regular. The Committee established that there was value for money on the part of the association. 3. The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development should come up with a policy on how to engage future subsidy programs within three months of adoption of this Report and submit a copy of the same to the Committee. It is also sad to note that none of the above recommendations have been implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Department. Hon. Deputy Speaker, with those few remarks, I second."
},
{
"id": 1431837,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1431837/?format=api",
"text_counter": 211,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Deputy Speaker",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Thank you. Hon. Members, allow me to now propose the question."
},
{
"id": 1431838,
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"text_counter": 212,
"type": "scene",
"speaker_name": "",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "(Question proposed)"
},
{
"id": 1431839,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1431839/?format=api",
"text_counter": 213,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Deputy Speaker",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Hon. Members, I would like you to note that the time allotted for this debate is five minutes for each member, including the Leader of the Majority Party. The total amount of time allocated is two and a half hours. Hon. DK, do you have a point of order?"
},
{
"id": 1431840,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1431840/?format=api",
"text_counter": 214,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Soy, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. David Kiplagat",
"speaker": null,
"content": " No. Thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker. As a member of the Departmental Committee on Agriculture and Livestock, I rise to support the Report that has been tabled by our able Chairman. Firstly, regarding the maize subsidy program that was implemented just before elections, our investigations, which took more than six months, revealed quite a lot of inconsistencies. We felt that right from start, there was no value for money. Secondly, you realise from the Report that we have categorised the millers into two types. They are the large-scale millers who constitute the Cereal Millers Association (CMA), and the small-scale millers who constitute the GMOA. At the outset, the meeting that took place at State House involved the CMA, whose members are the large-scale millers. They are the ones who designed the architecture of the program. If you look closely, by the time they met, the large-scale millers were owed about Ksh500 million. From the design, they were paid before the project began. That means the whole architecture was to ensure that, at least, the flour reached the consumer. Upon auditing the process, we could not know whether the subsidised flour reached the consumers. There was no mechanism that stopped a miller from releasing the flour in between for auditing purposes. From our investigations, we believe that the designers of the program, comprising of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, and other State actors, together with the large-scale millers; colluded to defraud this country of over Ksh7.6 billion. Looking at the payment that was already made under Article 223 of the Constitution, they spent about Ksh4 billion and Ksh500 million went to payment of arrears of Financial Year 2017/2018. The GMOA, who are the small-scale millers, were very forthright. They were only factored in when the entire architecture had been done. When they appeared before the Committee, they said they had not seen a mechanism for delivering to consumers. Instead, they milled the flour and distributed it to the many people outside their gates. We felt that we could not punish the millers who did not know the architecture of what was going on. Instead, they milled and sold the flour to whomever was outside their gate. So, the The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}
]
}