Revival of giant farmers union at stake over leadership wrangles
The revival of the troubled Kenya Planters’ Co-operative Union could be in jeopardy over leadership crisis triggered by calls for election of new office bearers.
The current KPCU board says one of the conditions for the funds given to the union for revival was that it completes its term that ends in two years.
This adds a new twist in the controversy over the elections called for July 31 by Industrialisation Principal Secretary Wilson Songa. The current board has opposed the elections saying their three-year term has not expired.
The PS has written to governors asking them to organise KPCU elections in their coffee zones. “The borrowed funds have a default clause that does not envisage the change of board until 2016.
“What this means is that KPCU could relapse to the state of receivership if the current agitation for change of the board is sustained,” said KPCU chairman William Gatei. The board has 10 members from different coffee zones.
This is happening even as the board announced that it would start verifying the amounts to be paid in arrears to farmers from Monday for coffee delivered before 2009.
KPCU was placed under receivership by the Kenya Commercial Bank in October 2009, and Deloitte Consulting Ltd was appointed receiver managers after the union failed to repay a Sh644 million debt. Its assets were almost auctioned a year later, but the government intervened.
“We do not know who is intended to benefit from the current agitation for elections even before the board has completed its term. It seems there are those in the (Industrialisation) ministry who would not want to see KPCU resume operations for whatever reasons,” Mr Gatei said.
According to the minutes of the AGM meeting held on July 31 last year, the board was confirmed for a three-year term to oversee the revival of the union.
Mr Songa, however, declined to comment on the matter when contacted.
“In that case I might not be able to comment on the matter as the commissioner has been handling it and we are meeting on Monday,” Mr Songa said.
KPCU and KCB have entered an out-of-court settlement over the debt and the union has already paid the first instalment of Sh100 million.
After talks between the two firms, the debt was reduced to Sh400 million. Mr Gatei said the balance of Sh300 million is to be paid over a period of about ten years without interest.
The board has called for a special general meeting on July 29 to discuss the payment of farmers’ arrears and the way forward on the revival of KPCU.
Advertisement for the sale of Wakulima building was put in the local dailies in 2010 but strong lobbying by the farmers ensured the government put a caveat on the auctioning.
“The vested interests have made it difficult for KPCU to get off the ground. We know there are forces that have always worked against revival of KPCU. We shall resist attempts to sell off assets to benefit few people,” said an official of a coffee society in Kiambu.
