The ambitious fertiliser subsidy programme is in limbo as the ministry decries Sh14.7 billion budget deficit.
State Department of Crop Development PS Kello Harsama on Monday told MPs the project will be dealt a huge blow given Treasury's allocation for the next financial year.
He said the budgetary requirement for the rollout of the programme was Sh19.2 billion.
However, the project has only been allocated Sh4.5 billion by the Treasury.
This translates to Sh14.7 billion resource gap that the state department now fears could hamper the programme at the heart of the President’s efforts to lower the cost of living.
“The government will not be able to provide 4.28 million bags of fertiliser thus reduced production,” the PS told the National Assembly Departmental Committee on Agriculture and Livestock.
President William Ruto stopped unga subsidies and instead shifted to subsidising fertiliser, which he has consistently termed "subsidising production".
According to the ministry documents tabled before the committee, the government has spent Sh6.2 billion for the fertiliser subsidy out of the Sh13.2 billion allocated during the supplementary budget.
Matayos MP Geoffrey Odanga faulted the distribution criteria of the subsidised fertiliser, saying the entire Busia county has yet to receive the farm input.
“In my county of Busia, this fertiliser has not reached there,” Odanga said.
Kello spoke before the committee, chaired by Tigania West John Mutunga, which is in the process of considering the department’s 2023-24 estimates of expenditure and revenue.
The PS also expressed fears that the resource constraints may affect the payment of pending bills incurred by the department.
He cited the Sh1.7 billion ETG court award and the Sh5.3 billion National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) fertiliser pending bills as some of the commitments they may not be able to settle.
“In addition, court award to ETG against ministry will not be settled and NCPB fertiliser subsidy pending bill funded by KCB loan will not be settled,” he said.
The PS was however put to task on the accumulation of multi-billion pending bills, with the MPs questioning how the state department ignored the first-charge policy introduced by the government to clear pending bills.
“The pending bill on the fertiliser subsidy I am seeing for the first time, where do we get money to clear all these? We should learn to make good use of government resources because it is our responsibility,” Wajir West MP Yusuf Mohamed said.
Soy MP David Kiplagat questioned why the government is still hell-bent on doing business with ETG, a company that had taken it to court and won millions in awards.
The lawmaker claimed the arrangement was suspect and demanded in-depth scrutiny of the whole deal.
“ETG has taken the ministry to court, as far as I know the company has been dealing with the government for a long time, what was the nature of this relationship with customer that even after taking you to court and you are still dealing with it?” the Soy lawmaker posed.