Details ! How Kiunjuri Has Been Lying About Maize Shortage

Agriculture CS Mwangi Kiunjuri
Agriculture CS Mwangi Kiunjuri after inspecting maize at the National Cereals and Produce Board depot in Kisumu County on November 13, 2018. PHOTO/COURTESY

Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mwangi Kiunjuri is a man under fire over attempts to create an ‘artificial’ emergency to import maize.

A section of MPs from the Rift Valley who have described the ministry as a theatre of absurdities, whose every nook and cranny cartels have infiltrated, claim that farmers have enough maize which the ministry has refused to purchase.

Nyeri Town MP Ngunjiri Wambugu who has joined in to destroy the CS, says that Kiunjuri plotted for the ‘artificial’ maize shortage in the country a long time ago referring it to the routine distortion of the grains market to pave way for cartels to make imports.

Nyeri Town MP Ngunjiri Wambugu.PHOTO/COURTESY

The vocal MP says Kiunjuri started by creating fear among farmers in August 2018 where he announced that the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) stores were full and farmers would have nowhere to sell their maize if they had them planted at the time.

Ngunjiri who now questions the Ministry’s plan to import  19M bags of maize to cover a deficit, wonders how a 19 M bags deficit could only be created within a 9 months period.

“In August 2018 CS Kiunjuri tells Kenyans that The National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) stores are full, raising fears that farmers may have nowhere to sell maize. In July 2019 CS Kiunjuri says the Government plans to import 19M bags of maize to cover a deficit. So in 11 months we apparently went from excess to 19M bags deficit!,” read the MPS Facebook statement.

Kiunjuiri was backing the fund’s board chairman, Mr Noah Wekesa who has maintained stand that there is no need to import maize since the country has at least 2,760,000 90-kilogram bags, a quantity that will last until mid-August, going by the average of 1.5 million bags per month, ahead of the harvest season.

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Fund’s board chairman, Mr Noah Wekesa.PHOTO/COURTESY

The former Wildlife and Forestry minister also said they were expecting good harvests from Bomet and Western regions and that visits to Machakos, Kirinyaga and Bungoma established millers had some maize.

“Sometime in September, we are going to start receiving maize from farmers in western regions and Bomet,” Mr Wekesa said.

He accused cartels of only being interested in lining their pockets.

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