NAIROBI, Kenya Dec 8 – The reforms in the coffee sub-sector are likely to stall after MPs quashed amendments in a report last week.
According to a report on the consideration of the Coffee Amendment Regulations 2021, the House committee rejected the amendments citing non-compliance with the law.
“Having examined the Crops (Coffee) Amendment Regulations 2021, the Committee recommends that the House annuls in entirety the said statutory instrument for non-compliance with the law,” read a statement from the chair of the committee, William Kassait.
In the report, the committee highlighted a mismatch in public participation lists, as the attendance lists reflect that the public participation was conducted in 2018 before the principal legislations were approved in 2019.
The committee also added that the National Coffee Cooperative Federation raised concerns that the regulations had led to clawing back on progress in the ongoing reforms in the sector.
It also established that there was no evidence that a regulatory impact assessment was conducted on the amendment of the regulations.
“The regulations are inconsistent with Section 40 of the Crops Act, which requires the Cabinet Secretary while making regulations to do it in consultation with the Agriculture and food authority and the county governments,” the statement read.
In the Coffee sector, the government has been looking towards supporting farmers to get details of how much their coffee fetched on the market, reduce wastage occasioned by processing and milling and also see them access the Sh3 billion cherry revolving fund.
In line with this, the government initiated the reforms in the sector to address areas of data management, access to farm inputs, access to affordable credit, corporate governance, processing and marketing.
