Ksh 1.6 Billion Unaccounted For As Agriculture Ministry Faces Maize Probe

Kenyan taxpayers will continue asking questions as the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock says it cannot account for 1.6 billion shillings of Maize imports.

It emerged that the Government had given the Agricultural Ministry 4.4 billion shillings to handle food shortage that hit the country back in 2017. The ministry was supposed to import maize from other countries since there was less supply of staple food.

The Ministry of Agriculture only spent 2,483,120,000 shillings to import maize according to the documents it presented before the Publics Accounts Committee on Monday, February 24, 2020. Where did the rest of the money go?

Agriculture Principal Secretary Hamadi Iddi Boga told the members of the Publics accounts Committee that the ministry could not find other documents to support the payments it paid during the maize importation period.

An Auditor General’s report showed that the 1,600,000,000 was transacted in the following ways; Export Trading (Sh1,072,000), Hydrey (P) Ltd (Sh1,000,000,000), Export Trading (Sh1,114,00), Mombasa Maize Millers (Sh609,000,000) and Export Trading (Sh1,400,000). But PS Boga said they could not trace the payment documents.

“After going through our cash books, bank statements and IFMIS system we cannot see any payments made,” Boga said.

In 2017, Kenya had been hit by a serious food shortage. The crisis forced the Government to import maize from foreign companies at high prices and sell them to local millers at relative and subsidized prices.

Boga presented a list of 36 companies who had sold maize to the government at the time and the documents revealed that the Government paid 3,000 shillings for a 90-kilogram sack. The local maize millers then bought the sacks from the government at 2,300 shillings each.

The committee later learned that the same traders who sold the maize to the Government wore different masks and presented themselves as local millers.

Accompanying the PS of Agriculture was Strategic Food Reserve Board chairperson Noah Wekesa, who cited that their department is not allowed to make decisions. All the decisions are made by a committee in the ministry thus his side is clean.

Mr. Wekesa blamed the scandal on the former CS Mwangi Kiunjuri, who was sacked by the president following several complaints and corruption allegations involving the Ministry.

Former CS Kiunjuri who was supposed to appear before the committee was not present as he had earlier requested the committee to give him a later date to respond to the corruption allegations.

Former Agriculture CS Willy Bett and former PS Richard Lesiyampe were summoned by the committee after they snubbed several sittings. Head of Public Service Joseph Kinyua was also permitted to appear on a later date.

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