NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 22 – A mega scandal is brewing in the Ministry of Agriculture over the maize subsidy program after it emerged that millers were awarded different contracts to supply subsidized flour.
Revelations that emerged before the National Assembly Committee on Agriculture showed that the contractual obligations of the contract given to the Cereal Millers Association and Grain Owners Millers Association were different.
Millers under the Grain Owners Millers Association who are mainly small-scale millers were required to distribute subsidized maize flour at Sh 100 directly to the consumers in their contractual obligation.
However, the millers contracted under the Cereal Millers Association were not obliged to ensure subsidized flour supplies get to the consumers at a subsidized price.
MPs have raised eyebrows that the omission in the contract was to ensure money was swindled from Kenyans under the program.
“We have two sets of contracts that were submitted by the millers and those submitted by the Ministry. The contract submitted to us today is not the contract signed by the millers. They are different like day and night,” said John Mutunga, Committee Chair.
Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture Mithika Linturi has however defended his docket saying the National Treasury under the stewardship of Ukur Yatani made a critical decision on the maize subsidy program.
“Our report is so clear that MOA was never involved, we were not party to it. We haven’t been able to get the deliberations of those meetings and we don’t know how the agreements were done and implemented,” Linturi said.
“Invoke your powers and ask those people that sat at Treasury as we were not able to access the minutes of the deliberations that took place outside the Ministry of Agriculture. We are answering issues that are not clear to us,” he added.
Evidence tabled before the John Mutunga-led committee revealed that 129 millers had been contracted to supply subsidized flour in the Kenyan market out of which only 119 millers supplied the commodity using different contracts.
The Ministry of Agriculture has however told MPs that there was only one contract that was entered with millers according to their record saying any other contract might have been falsified.
CS Linturi mentioned that the four-week contract entered between is only one refuting the claim that two different contracts were issued to millers.
“What I provided is a draft contract that was supposed to be signed. I have no copy of the signed contract which would make me believe that the contract attached here by the millers was approved by the Attorney General,” he said.
The lawmakers expressed that highly ranked officials at the Ministry of Agriculture and National Treasury embezzled public funds using the subsidy program exonerating millers from the allegation that they falsified the contracts.
“It’s not satisfactory what CS Linturi is telling us by exonerating himself and so we want to know who gave the millers these contracts? Is it the Ministry of Agriculture or Treasury or is it something that they signed for themselves?” said Wajir West MP Yussuf Farrah.
“The contract was approved by the Attorney General and therefore we wonder this other contract where did it come from and who approved?” said Soi MP David Kiplagat.
“It will be highly unlikely that a miller would sit down to tamper with a contract. At what point do the makers of that contract choose to deal with Okello separately and Linturi separately on the same contractual obligation?” posed Nyando MP Jared Okello.
“If at all there is a contract it came from the attorney general office and it can only be one. Maybe we need someone from the Attorney General’s office to tell us which contract is authentic,” said Borabu MP Patrick Kibagendi.
Variance in payment
Equally significant was the amount of money allocated and disbursed for the maize subsidy program which had great variance with MOA quoting Sh 7.2B while the millers were quoting Sh 6.6B.
In August 2022, the Ministry of Agriculture paid the millers Sh 4Billion remaining with a pending bill of Sh 3.2 billion according to their records.
In December 2022, they wrote to the Treasury Principal Secretary Chris Kiptoo requesting Sh 3.2Bilion to pay the millers their outstanding dues which were accruing interest.
Details submitted by the millers on their payment owed by the government was Sh 6.6Billion which shows a variance 600Million.
The Ministry of Agriculture explained that the variance over the funds required for payment was an error incurred on double invoices.
“After we did all the reconciliation that needed to be done we identified that the difference between Sh 3.2B and 3B was an issue of repeated invoices and the actual figure stands at Sh 3B,”said Linturi.
