NCPB to sell 500,000 bags of maize from grain reserve

PHOTO | JARED NYATAYA Trucks loaded with maize queue at the National Cereals and Produce Board, Eldoret depot on December 05, 2013. The loss-making NCPB hopes to raise Sh1.4 billion from the sale of 500,000 bags of maize in the strategic grain reserve even as it prepares for major restructuring.

What you need to know:

  • NCPB managing director Newton Terer, in  an advert in local dailies last week, said the board will sell the maize at Sh2,800 a bag as part of the grain refreshing exercise. The board said the stock will be available in their stores across the country.
  • They also recommended that government clears the Sh5.6 billion debt it owes NCPB for a successful turnaround of the board, to be renamed the Grain Corporation of Kenya.

The loss-making National Cereals and Produce Board hopes to raise Sh1.4 billion from the sale of 500,000 bags of maize in the strategic grain reserve even as it prepares for major restructuring.

This comes one month after Ernst & Young consultants completed a one-year study and submitted a report on restructuring the state corporation to make it profitable.

NCPB managing director Newton Terer, in  an advert in local dailies last week, said the board will sell the maize at Sh2,800 a bag as part of the grain refreshing exercise. The board said the stock will be available in their stores across the country.

However, experts in the industry say the move by the board to dispose of the stocks is aimed at improving its financial status ahead of restructuring.
The consultants recommended that a National Food Security Agency be established to handle the strategic grain reserve as well as the strategic food reserve.

“We recommended that government moves from price intervention-led commodity markets to economic-based ones through establishment of a commodity exchange market for grain,” said Daniel Kamande, project manager.

The recommendations are in line with proposed reforms by the Presidential task force on Parastatal Reforms, 2013, which proposed the transfer of the strategic grain reserve mandate of the NCPB to the Ministry of Agriculture Livestock and Fisheries and to retain the NCPB as a commercial entity under the Government Investment Corporation.

They also recommended that government clears the Sh5.6 billion debt it owes NCPB for a successful turnaround of the board, to be renamed the Grain Corporation of Kenya.