Team named to oversee State’s food cost-cutting programme

Principal Secretary, State Department of Agriculture Richard Leresian Lesiyampe. PHOTO | FRANCIS NDERITU | NMG 

By JAMES NGUNJIRI

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Summary

• Taskforce will monitor supply and demand of essential items and advice accordingly.

The government has established an inter-ministerial taskforce to steer the ongoing food subsidy programme in the country.

The taskforce is expected to ease pressure on the government, which has been...
facing harsh criticism following sharp increase in prices of basic food.

It will be led by Agriculture Principal Secretary (PS) Richard Lesiyampe and has 12 members, including a representative from the Attorney-General’s office.

It will analyse and give up-to-date status of the maize grain and such other essential commodities like sugar and powdered milk to determine supply and demand.

“It will identify possible sources of the duty exempted essential commodities and their competitive import prices, and monitor maize and maize products and other essential commodity prices in the market as the case may be and advise accordingly,” a gazette notice by Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Willy Bett reads.

The naming of the taskforce comes a little over a fortnight after MPs put Mr Bett and his PS to task to explain the rationale behind a Sh6 billion subsidy to maize millers meant to bring down the retail price of maize flour.

The subsidy cut the price of a 90 kilogramme bag of maize to Sh2,300 from above Sh4,000, allowing the two-kilogramme packet of flour to be sold for Sh90 against the market cost of Sh140.

Making a killing

Parliamentary agriculture committee members said that some millers, long accused of holding back maize stocks to make a killing when prices rise, did not deserve the cost-cutting benefit.

Besides allowing the importation of maize and sugar duty free last month, Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich also removed value added tax on flour.

He also announced the removal of duty on powdered milk allowing importation of 9,000 tonnes of the product.

This has led to Sh10 reduction of shelf prices per half-litre packet of milk by dairy processors which has also been attributed to increase in raw milk supplies after onset of the rainy season.  

Similarly, through a gazette notice published last week the government made it possible to implement a law passed in 2011 allowing price control of essential goods making it illegal for retailers to sell a two-kilogramme packet of subsidised maize flour above Sh90.

Those who defy the order face a Sh1 million fine or a five-year jail term.