On Friday, Forestry PS Ephantus Kimotho announced that plans are underway to harvest 5,000 hectares (12,355.25 acres) of mature trees.
“We are about to start harvesting sometime in May and we have targeted to harvest 5,000 hectares,” Kimotho said.
The PS said they are targeting to collect Sh3.5 million from trees that will be harvested.
Kimotho said the registration of saw millers is an ongoing process.
“We advertised early in the month. It started from March 1 to March 31. We already have the ones who are registered but we had opened for new ones in readiness for harvesting in May,” he said.
Kimotho spoke at Kenya Forest Service headquarters in Karura after unveiling eight Toyota Land Cruisers that will be used to secure forest resources.
In 2018, the KFS said saw millers had not paid Sh1.2 billion.
On Friday, Kimotho said saw millers have started paying up.
“They have started paying and before they are allowed to harvest, they first all have to pay so that they can harvest. We have given them notices of 30 days,” he said.
Forest plantations in the country cover about 335,000 acres of gazetted reserves.
Most plantations are located in five major water towers-Mt Kenya, Aberdare, Mau Forest Complex, Cherangany Hills and Mt Elgon.
Most trees in plantation areas are rotting away, while some are over-matured.
KFS normally plants eucalyptus trees away from water bodies as they consume a lot of water.
When the trees mature, the KFS carries out an audit and its plantation team marks the trees for sale to the registered saw millers who are about 800.
Buyers deposit money into a National Treasury account and are issued with receipts.
Millers take the receipts to forest station officers and harvest the mature trees under supervision.
The harvesting of mature trees from plantations however ceased in 2018 when authorities imposed a moratorium on logging, which was one of their biggest sources of revenue for the state and the KFS.
A 90-day ban on logging was initially imposed on February 24, 2018, and later extended to November 24.
It was again extended for a year to facilitate sector reforms.
The ban restricted the extraction of timber from all public and community forests.
The move was meant to give KFS more time to fully implement new measures to protect forests.
The ban has caused the state to lose billions of shillings even as it emerged that KFS has yet to settle a pending bill.
The pending bill of Sh4.033 billion relates to unremitted tax claims to the Kenya Revenue Authority from the sale of timber products.
KFS said the bill arose in 2014.
The ban on logging was arrived at following the findings of a task force that had been constituted by the government to inquire into forest resource management and logging activities.
The task force said the board and the management of KFS had been unable to “stem and in some instances have directly participated in, abated and systematised rampant corruption and abuse of office”.
“The Kenya Forest Service has institutionalised corruption and the system is replete with deep-rooted corrupt practices, lack of accountability and unethical behaviour,” the report said.
The task force noted that illegal logging of indigenous trees was a major threat to forests and was rampant in key forest areas.
In September 2018, KFS said all saw millers were required to undergo e-registration as a new requirement for pre-qualification for logging in state plantations.
The saw millers would later drag the government to court, claiming the conditions to qualify for the logging tenders were too harsh, including a requirement that they must have minimum balances of between Sh1 million and Sh10 million in their bank accounts.
The millers, most of whom are small-scale, said the set conditions were unrealistic and were meant to block them.
They said the ban on logging had collapsed and rendered more than 10,000 people jobless.
The saw millers had also gone for loans before the ban to develop their mills by purchasing machinery including lorries and tractors.
They also said before the ban they had paid more than Sh300 million to KFS for logging and they wanted the money refunded.
The state says millers have agreed to withdraw court cases.
But even as the state prepares for a partial lifting of the ban, the Auditor General’s office said in the 2017-18 financial year, KFS sold tree plantations worth Sh2,312,653,626 through direct procurement, which is contrary to the law.
The auditor said saw millers are identified by the Ecosystem Conservator, who then recommends the saw millers to the Chief Conservator of Forests for allocation of plantation compartments.
“There was no evidence of how the tree values were determined as there were no reserve prices set by the ecosystem conservator,” the audit says.
The auditor's office said upon receipt of recommendations from the ecosystem conservator, the CCF has the prerogative to adopt or make amendments to the recommendations for allocation.
The audit says after examination of the recommendations, the CCF awarded the trees based on the sizes to saw millers.
“There were no clear guidelines on how the EC and CCF identified, examined, evaluated and awarded the saw millers, thereby rendering the method subjective and subject to abuse,” the audit says.
The auditor says a review of the award process revealed that the exercise was done in violation of forest participation as stipulated in the Sustainable Forest Management Rules, 2009 and the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act, 2015.
The move is also in violation of Forest Management Rules 2009, which led to suppression of competitiveness among, saw millers and the entity, may not get value for money.
KFS, however, says the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act No. 33 of 2015 and Forests (Participation in Sustainable Forest Management) Rules 2009 were replaced by a resolution of a full board meeting held on December 17, 2015.
