Sh145m Limuru milk plant to proceed after brokers kicked out

Dairy farmers from Limuru are excited after Kiambu Governor Kimani Wamatangi assured them they will not lose a Sh100 million funding to built a processing plant for their produce.

The governor blamed brokers who entered into the deal between the county government and World Bank for slowing the process.

According to the Limuru Dairy Farmers Co-operative Society manager Bedan Kamau, the World Bank had committed to partially fund the buying of an Ultra Heated Treated (UHT) milk processing machine.

The machine costs Sh145 million and the World Bank had committed to grant them Sh100 million.  The farmers had also put aside Sh15 million while the county government had promised to donate Sh30 million towards purchasing the machine.

However, Wamatangi says whenever the issue came up, some people who were not part of the deal and had sneaked in were demanding some percentage.

The governor says they first scrutinised the issue since those individuals were suspected to be brokers and were issuing threats that the issue was under investigations of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.

The issue reached the World Bank's deadline in December last year, where if the parties they were funding were not ready or had some disagreements, then they could withdraw the funding to another entity.

The funding is aimed at revival of Limuru Milk Processing plant.

However, the governor said he could not allow that to happen and had appealed to the World Bank to extend the time since there were issues they were scrutinising.

"We have had several meeting, consulting on the way forward while some people were busy misleading our people," he said.

"Stop listening to brokers. They were demanding for money. We had to sent people to check on the UHT machine and recheck the whole process again to ensure it was a clean deal," he said.

Speaking in Kiambu town on Monday, Wamatangi said within two months, the whole issue will be complete.

Ndeiya MCA Nelson Munga has applauded the governor for approaching the issue with wisdom.

He said once the machine is installed and starts working, farmers will benefit since the plant will increase the litres of milk it buys daily.

Munga, who is also the Kiambu county assembly chief whip, urged the MCAs and locals not to listen to brokers on issues regarding the government.

"Our people had been fed with information that was misleading them, but today, we know the truth and we thank the governor for approaching the issue with a lot of wisdom since he knows that it will impact to many people," he said.

-Edited by SKanyara