The Council of Governors have said failure to sign the Economic Partnership Agreement will kill the country's horticulture industry. Speaking after meeting the Kenya Flower Council in a Naivasha hotel yesterday, the governors blamed the ministries of Trade, East Africa Co-operation and Foreign Affairs for the collapse of the negotiations.
The council said it will hold a crisis meeting with the ministers as the country’s floriculture sector faced losing out its market share in the European Market due to the impasse.
Council chairman Isaac Ruto said thousand of workers will lose their jobs while investments worth billions could be lost. The Bomet governor said they were ready to lobby the government to have the agreement signed by the end of this month.
“Our market share the EU market stands at 40 per cent and we will loose this unless the EPA is signed before the end of this year,” said the Governor.
Nyeri Governor Nderitu Gachagua termed the horticulture sector as very crucial to the economy contributing nine per cent to the GDP and direct employment to over 90,000 people.
He said that the ongoing on reforms in devolved governments have destabilised the sector. He said there is need to involve stakeholders in formation of regulations at county level.
“We are deeply perturbed by the government's failure to sign the EPA in time as failure to do this could have devastating effects on counties dealing with floriculture farming,” he said.
The Chief Executive Officer KFC Jane Ngige said if the EPA is not signed the flower sector in the country will collapse. She said currently Kenyan agricultural products were enjoying duty free access to the EU market and that failure to sign the agreement will see a new tax regime of up to 10 per cent.
“The agreement comes in effect on 1st of October 2014 but it’s supposed to be signed by the end of this month so that the EU can have time to rectify it,” she said.
Ngige noted that the agreement affected other products like coffee, fish, fresh fruits, vegetables and others warning that failure was not an option. The chairman KFC Richard Fox was optimistic that the EPA could be signed terming the meeting with the governors as fruitful.
Fox said that the country stood to loose its flower market share to countries like Ethiopia and Colombia who had already signed their agreements with the EU.
“The sector has the potential to grow by five percent every year and we are concerned on the future due to the rise in cost of production and many tax regimes,” he said. Other governors present during the meeting were Moses Akaranga (Vihiga), Mwangi Wa Iria (Muranga), James Ongwae (Kisii) among others.