Two mega scandals that rocked President’s food security agenda
By Anthony Mwangi, September 13, 2024President William Ruto’s administration has been hit by two mega scandals in its two years in office that rocked his food security agenda.
A fake-fertiliser scandal and one on edible oils involved close allies of the President and even almost resulted in the impeachment of a Cabinet secretary.
On edible oils, over Sh9 billion was lost, capturing the attention of the President himself, who ordered investigations into three top government officials implicated in the shady deal.
Ruto had, on his own initiative, negotiated a good deal with the manufacturers on the selling price of 125,000 metric tonnes of edible oil.
It was later reported to the President that the three State officers had inflated the price by $7 per litre.
This means that after the oil was imported, those involved made a whopping Sh875 million.
The President, riled by the scandal, directed Head of Public Service Felix Koskei to write to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission and urge it to open an investigation and prosecute those involved.
The scam resulted in the arraignment of top managers at the Kenya National Trading Corporation (KNTC), the importing agency, including Managing Director Pamela Mutua.
Ruto allies
The two Houses of Parliament are also carrying out their own investigations into the scandal that involved two close allies of the President.
The fertiliser scandal involved individuals allied to State mandarins and companies contracted by the government to supply subsidised farm input.
It was a setback for Ruto’s plan to improve food security.
Tests showed that the fertiliser supplied by the companies, and some of which was distributed to farmers across the country, was substandard.
Some Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) officials have since been suspended for issuing quality marks to the firms at the centre of the fertiliser scandal.
The matter is under investigation by Parliament and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.
The current probe targeting Kebs mirrors one in 2018 when its managing director and nine other officials were arrested and charged with attempted murder for allowing imports of substandard fertiliser containing mercury.
Food crisis
President Ruto warned those involved in the fraud would be prosecuted and demanded that the suppliers compensate farmers who had bought the substandard fertiliser.
The President, who took office in September 2022 amid a biting food crisis associated with Kenya’s worst drought in 40 years and global supply chain disruptions from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, had prioritised policies to boost agricultural production and wean the country off food imports.
In its first major policy decisions on agriculture, the Ruto Cabinet approved the distribution of subsidised fertiliser to farmers and lifted a 10-year ban on the cultivation and imports of genetically modified (GM) crops.
Greater threat
The order on GM crops was challenged in court, while there have been some green shoots from the implementation of the fertiliser subsidy.
The production of Kenya’s staple crop, maize, for example, was projected to increase from 34.3 million bags in 2022 to 47.8 million bags in 2023, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.
An even greater threat to President Ruto’s food agenda lurks in the latest reports of a fake-fertiliser scandal that has sent farmers into a panic in the middle of another crucial planting season, coinciding with the current long rains.