NAIROBI, Kenya Nov 21 – Pokot South Member of Parliament David Pkosing has protested the move by the government to import ten million bags of maize saying that farmers will face the brunt of any such attempts.
Pkosing castigated Trade and Industrialization Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria for announcing plans to import maize terming it immoral and erratic.
“CS Kuria should stop the importation of maize, whether it’s GMO or no GMO because farmers are harvesting and in fact they want to demonstrate from tomorrow over this issue,” he said.
“What the farmers were expecting is for the government to announce that they should take their maize to the depot immediately,” Pkosing added.
The Pokot South MP averred that farmers want the government through the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) to buy their maize at a minimum of Sh4,500 for them to make profit.
He elaborated that the cost of input which includes fertilizers, seeds and ploughing farmers will incur losses if the government would opt to buy the maize any less.
Pkosing said that importation of maize will interfere will the flow of supply and demand hence lowering the maize price due to surplus in the market.
“The danger of importing the ten million bags of maize is that the price of a bag of maize will go down to Sh 1000, where will our farmers sell maize?”he posed.
In a series of statements on his social media, Kuria claimed that farmers are sitting on over 20 million bags of maize.
He asked the farmers to urgently release the existing maize bags and those obtained after harvesting to millers, so that the latter does not import maize.
The Pokot South lawmaker however disputed the statement saying the farmers have enough maize to feed Kenyans till early next year.
“If the motivation is to feed our people we have enough maize in the North Rift. We should not import even a single bag of maize between now and February next year,” Pkosing said.
Pkosing alleged that the Trade and Industrialization CS was being pushed by multinationals to import the maize in the country and the purchase for strategic reserve was a mere excuse.
“If the CS doesn’t stop we will tell the farmers and he will face the wrath of farmers. What is the rationale of importing maize when farmers harvesting. If he is being forced by the whites and some multinationals, I want to tell him to desist from that pressure,” he said.
Kuria on Thursday announced the government had made the tough call to allow duty-free importation of 10 million bags of GMO maize over the next six months.
The CS said he will issue a gazette notice to authorize the importation as some 4.2 million Kenyans especially in pastoralist areas face severe hunger due to severe drought that has persisted for months this year leading to food shortage.