Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria has raised concerns over the progress of his Crops Amendment
Bill which he
presented to the House Speaker Justin Mutui in June last year.
The Bill seeks
to ban the export of unprocessed coffee
to boost farmers’ earnings.
In a letter addressed to Muturi dated January 14, Kuria
protests the delay by the House Business Committee to present the bill for deliberation in the House.
Kuria alleged that the delay in fast-tracking the bill for debate in the assembly is "not accidental" and is designed to have the coffee farmers continue to suffer.
He said the delay only compounds the already worse state of the coffee farmers.
Kuria presented the bill last year seeking to correct what he termed an unfair trade practice where some countries import the raw Kenyan coffee, process it and re-export it back to the country for sale at exorbitant
prices.
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The MP sought to know from the speaker why since he "tabled the bill on June 12 last year, no progress has been made by the House Business Committee to bring it to the floor of the house."
He urged Muturi to intervene and have the proposed amendment in the crop laws moved for debate to improve the farmers' situation.
"They have even resorted to uprooting the crop," he said.
Raw coffee beans, which are Kenya’s fifth-biggest source of hard currency, are usually sold at a weekly auction in Nairobi or directly to buyers abroad who then roast, package and sell them at a hefty premium.
"Our farmers are taken advantage of by this kind of trade," Kuria said in June last year.
But the proposal has attracted varied responses from leaders in the Mount Kenya region, with Industrialisation CS Peter Munya opposing the ban on raw coffee export.
He argues that processed coffee has a short shelf-life of only two weeks and this would make farmers make loses.
Kirinyaga governor Anne Waiguru has also voiced her rejection of the bill.
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