Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga yesterday called for the prosecution of the Kenya Tea Development Agency board of directors over fraud claims.
He urged DCI director George Kinoti to move with speed and unearth what he termed"massive corruption" at the agency.
'The DCI needs to take an interest in farmers' complaints and safeguard their interests at the KTDA," Raila said.
He accused the current directors of ruining the tea sector.
"We won't sit back and watch as tea growing goes down the road of coffee and sugarcane. We want a thorough audit of the current board at KTDA," he said.
Raila spoke after a meeting at his capital hill office with directors of Kiru Tea Factory led by chairman Geoffrey Kirundi .
Tea farmers affiliated to Kiru in Kiria–ini, Murang'a county are staring at an uncertain future as the contract between the factory and the KTDA comes to an end next week.
Insisting that no efforts should be spared in overhauling the KTDA leadership, Raila said it was appalling that the directors have clung to power with impunity for over a decade.
"This is a shocking story that requires urgent intervention. We are losing tea to corruption and mismanagement," Raila said noting that the same directors have been ignoring court orders.
Raila, who regretted that many tea farmers were wallowing in abject poverty over low tea earnings, urged Parliament to legislate against KTDA's monopoly.
"This is how the collapse of the coffee sector started," he said adding that the financial stability of farmers has been threatened with the majority drowning in deep debts.
The ODM leader said the collapse of the tea industry could spell doom to the country's economy given that the crop is Kenya's top foreign exchange earner.
"We risk losing the country' s top foreign income earner unless urgent action is taken at the top leadership of KTDA," he said.
Raila said KTDA has lost touch with farmers and have set them on the path of hopelessness despite selling tea products at massive profits at the international market.
"Tea is auctioned at Sh 80 per kilo but farmers are paid just Sh18 per kilo and this is affecting their lifeline," he added noting that the same tea is imported expensively into Kenyan shelves.
He said Kenya loses at least 100 million kilograms of tea to hawking each year in a clear manifestation of "something wrong with KTDA."
To this end, Raila called on the Ministry of Agriculture to institute reforms at KTDA to save farmers who are already uprooting the crop in some parts of the country.
"There is a feeling that the current board cannot lead these reforms," he said.
This comes two days after the embattled tea agency increased payouts to farmers in areas with rampant cases of leaf hawking in an effort to curb the practice.
KTDA national chairman Peter Kanyago announced on Monday that the agency had resolved to pay farmers between Sh17 and Sh18 per kilo of green leaf starting July.
This followed a consultative a meeting with the agriculture ministry after concerns that farmers had resorted to hawking tea leaves owing to poor earnings from KTDA.
(edited by O. Owino)
