Revealed: Sh150 million maize scandal

• Some of the maize which was meant to cushion Kenyans against rising maize flour prices and a looming famine, may be on its way to Southern Sudan.
• KACC's investigation of an earlier maize-related scandal at NCPB in which crooked businessmen posing as millers were allocated hundreds of thousands of bags of maize to be concluded on Wednesday.
• NCPB Managing Director is reported to have distanced himself from the 80,000-bag allocation list even as some of his managers blamed a group of people at the Board for the situation.

More than 80,000 bags of maize valued at Sh150 million have been allocated to briefcase millers and a defunct company in Nakuru at a time when the country is facing a serious shortage of maize, the Sunday Nation has established.

Industry sources say that some of the maize, which was meant to cushion Kenyans against rising maize flour prices and a looming famine, may be on its way to Southern Sudan where it is being sold for US$80 (Sh6,000) for a 90 kg bag.

The allocation operation is running parallel to government efforts to avert a looming famine facing some 10 million Kenyans.

Last Friday President Kibaki chaired a Cabinet committee on food security which approved the importation of maize to head off a famine.

A list of 10-day maize allocations to 46 millers that was signed on December 22, 2008 by the trustees of the Strategic Grain Reserve (SGR) includes Milling Corporation, a Nakuru business that closed down last August.

Permanent secretaries

The trustees of SGR are the permanent secretaries for the ministries of Special Programmes, Agriculture, Office of the Prime Minister and Treasury.

The allocation of the 80,000 bags to the so-called small-scale millers who supply about 60 per cent of the Kenyan market began on December 22.

Indications that a significant amount of maize involved in this allocation process may have been diverted appeared in the week following the January 4 Sunday Nation report that more than 100,000 bags of maize to be processed by government-contracted big millers and meant to feed poor Kenyans could not be accounted for.

The National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) said it had released 144,000 bags of maize to the contracted millers, but they said they could only account for 40,000 bags.

Briefcase millers with no known premises are said to have inflated their per hour milling capacity so the SGR trustees would allocate them large quantities of maize at the expense of the bona fide millers.

NCPB spokesman Kipserem Maritim was unable to explain how the names of the briefcase millers found their way onto the list signed by four permanent secretaries. Mr Maritim could not confirm whether all the maize allocated had been collected or by whom. “The list is being audited to confirm who collected the maize,” he told the Sunday Nation.

Mr Maritim also confirmed that millers had confirmed to the Board that Milling Corporation closed down last year.

Asked whether the Board applied any standards to the millers they deal with, Mr Maritim said: “We are investigating how these companies found their way on our list.”

Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) spokesman Nicholas Simani said their investigation of an earlier maize-related scandal at the Board in which crooked businessmen posing as millers were allocated hundreds of thousands of bags of maize only to offload them to millers at astronomical prices would be concluded on Wednesday and the file forwarded to the Attorney General with recommendations.