This is after Parliament slammed brakes on the payment of Sh2.5 billion claimed by the Cereals Millers Association.
National Assembly departmental committee on Agriculture has advised against the payouts, spelling new trouble for the millers.
President William Ruto and his troops were against the subsidy programme and have consistently claimed it was an avenue for looting.
The Agriculture Committee chaired by Tigania West MP John Mutunga however approved for payment of Sh500 million owed to small-scale traders under the Grain Mill Owners Association.
The committee also recommended to Parliament to regularise Sh841 million initial payment to the small-scale millers that was done under Article 223.
In blocking the multi-billion shilling CMA payment, the committee cited inconsistencies in records from both the ministry and the millers regarding the contract and the amounts involved.
For instance, the amount of money owed to CMA submitted to the committee was different from the amount that they were demanding from ministry to pay.
“The amount of money paid and that owed to the millers provided to the committee by the three stakeholders were different,” the report reads.
“CMA explained that the figure submitted to the committee had gone up because two other millers joined the programme later. They however did not submit details of the two millers.”
The MPs want further investigations on the CMA deal to ascertain whether there was value for the money.
CMA claimed to have supplied maize flour worth Sh4.4 billion and only received Sh1.9 billion as payment leaving a balance of Sh2.5 billion.
“From the above observations, the committee will undertake further investigation into the matter in order to determine the fate of the Cereal Millers’ association.”
“The committee recommended that the millers under Grain Mill Owners’ Association be paid the money owed to them by the ministry.”
GMOA was owed Sh500 million, according to the committee’s report tabled in Parliament on Wednesday.
“The Sh841 million that was paid to GMOA under Article 223 of the Constitution be regularised because the committee established that there was value for money on the association’s report.”
The committee was conducting inquiry into the maize subsidy programme implemented by the last regime towards the August 9 polls.
Both the CMA and GMOA appeared before the MPs to justify the deal that the committee suspected could be a conduit of siphoning taxpayers’ money towards elections.
In 2022, flour prices hit an all time high of Sh210 for a 2kg packet forcing the government to introduce the subsidy programme that was implemented between July 21 and August 17, 2022.
Under the programme that was aimed at making the staple food affordable to the majority poor, Kenyans were to purchase a 2kg packet at Sh100.
MPs were therefore seeking to establish whether the subsidy achieved its objectives and whether there was value for money.
The government ended up spending Sh7.2 billion to rollout the short-term subsidy programme out of which Sh4 billion had been paid under the Article 223 of the constitution.
Sh3.267 billion was yet to be paid to the millers.
When the Sh4 billion spent under Article 223 was finally brought to the committee for regualrisation as required by law, it declined citing non-disclosure prompting the probe.
“The committee did not approve the expenditure on account of non-disclosure of information on who the maize suppliers were, the quantity of maize supplied, the areas in which the subsidised maize flour was supplied and the retail outlet that sold the maize,” the committee’s reports reads.
The report will now be debated by House which has the powers to either adopt it or amend before passing.
Parliament can also reject the report.
While appearing before the committee in March, CMA threatened to take government to court over the dues that continue to attract interest.
The association’s CEO Paloma Fernandes told MPs the agency has already served a demand letter to the Attorney General Justin Muturi.
“We wish to state that each miller has in place a duly executed and enforceable contract with the government. The millers performed their part of their obligations, but the government has breached terms of the contract, ” Paloma said in March.
“Due to the foregoing and the negative impact it has on them (millers), the millers have invoked the Dispute Resolution clause under Article 10 of each miller’s contract and have issued the Attorney General with the 30 days statutory demand notice to settle the above mentioned debt.”
-Edited by SKanyara
