As a wave of scandals continues to sweep across the country, it has now emerged that the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) has been paying people who are not farmers to supply maize.
It has emerged that the NCPB paid 1.05 billion shillings to 18 maize merchants who had failed its vetting leaving out thousands of farmers who are now stranded with their maize.
The revelation comes even as investigations continue into the disappearance of more than 10 billion shillings from the National Youth Service (NYS).
It has also emerged that eight of the traders were paid 607.8 million shillings after supplying the board with 427,784 bags of maize weighing 50 kilograms each to a depot in Eldoret. The bard still owes them 265 million shillings.
Parliament heard on Thursday that most of the people who have been supplying maize to NCPB are not farmers but traders who import cheap maize from Uganda and sell them to the board at higher prices.
For instance, a trader by the name Celestine Chepchirchir was paid 333 million shillings, Alice Wanjiku Githaiga was paid 46.8 million shillings and Paul Kibichy Biego who pocketed 18 million shillings. All these traders had failed the vetting of the board.
The corruption at the NCPB is said to have cut across all the depots from Eldoret to Kisumu where real farmers have been turned away from the depots while traders allowed to supply their imported maize.
The most affected farmers are from the great North Rift with the majority of them, on top of the attack from Armyworms have had to content with piling bags of maize in their stores.
“It is funny that the most senior politician in Kenya is from our tribe (Kalenjin), the NCPB bosses are from our tribe, the traders stealing from farmers are from our tribe and the farmers suffering are from our tribe,” the words of Nandi Hills MP Alfred Keter.