The Senate Committee on Agriculture
has raised concerns over the state of the National Cereals and Produce Board, which is facing a worsening financial crisis.
The board is owed more than Sh10
billion by the national government and county administrations. Senators also
expressed concern over an acute shortage of staff at the institution.
Bungoma Senator David Wakoli, who
chairs the committee, led members on a tour of the NCPB depot in Eldoret to
assess its capacity as a strategic reserves centre and its ability to work with
other stakeholders in serving farmers.
He said the committee
established that the government had been using NCPB facilities to distribute
subsidised fertiliser and other services without paying for them. “The
government and counties have not been paying their dues owed to the NCPB, thus
crippling its operations,” Senator Wakoli said.
The committee also found out that the board only has about 120 staff in the North Rift, a key farming region. Wakoli said the staff are anxious about their fate due to government
plans to dissolve or merge some state corporations.
“As a committee, we will be
summoning the relevant officers or departments and counties to explain why, for
example, they are not paying what is due to NCPB,” he said.
Wakoli warned that NCPB may soon be
completely unable to perform its functions because of the financial crisis.
Senators further said they were keen to explore how NCPB can guarantee
last-mile distribution of subsidised fertiliser to all farmers.
At the same time, the committee
discovered that more than 10 driers procured by the government and handed to
counties in the region were not working and had been abandoned. Wakoli said while the driers given to NCPB were functional, those allocated to
counties were not operational due to poor working relationships with suppliers.
“The driers are supposed to be working to help farmers dry their produce,
especially as the maize harvesting season approaches,” he said.
The senator said NCPB could
only function effectively with proper support from the government, the Ministry
of Agriculture, and other stakeholders to enable it to fulfill its mandate.
Present during the tour were senators Catherine Muma and Alexander Mundigi of Embu, alongside Uasin
Gishu county officials and NCPB staff.
The committee later paid a courtesy
call on Uasin Gishu Governor Jonathan Bii, where they discussed the proper
registration of farmers and record-keeping for the agriculture sector. The
senators also toured NCPB facilities in Kitale and other parts of the region.
