Cereals and produce board releases maize to arrest flour price

The government will release 1,005,367 bags of maize to millers to arrest the escalating price of flour.

A bag would be sold for Sh2,500, Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries Cabinet Secretary (CS) Willy Bett said on Thursday at a press conference in his office.

A two-kilogramme packet of maize four is retailing for about Sh104, an increase of Sh15 from March.

The sector has been on tenterhooks since the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) told the parliamentary public investments committee on Tuesday that the government’s slow pace in authorising maize for sale from the Strategic Grain Reserve had led to 400,000 bags going bad.

The maize has been in the reserve for eight years. However, on Thursday, Mr Bett said only 104,000 bags had gone bad.

“The maize went bad because there was no comprehensive policy on offloading of old stock before the Strategic Food Reserve was formed last year.

“Since the SFR came into being, it has offloaded 2.3 million bags and only 104,000 remain of the old stock. This will be sold as livestock feed.”

And later on Thursday in a session with Mr Bett, the National Assembly’s agriculture committee questioned the country’s capacity to feed itself after it was said that it has 9.4 million bags of maize but only two million in government custody.

Mr Bett said the country had 9.4 million bags in its food reserves but the bulk of it was in the hands of farmers and traders, with the MPs questioning how he had arrived at the figure.

Mr Bett said farmers were holding 4.4 million bags, traders two million, 585,000 bags by millers and the NCPB, 2.4 million bags. The country had enough stock to last up to the next harvests in October, he stated.

“Farmers are holding the bulk of the maize stock for speculation purposes but we expect them to release them to the market before the next harvest, otherwise, they will find it hard to sell,” he said.
Millers have in the past refused to buy maize from NCPB due to its yellow coloration, due to aflatoxin contamination, and have had to import from neighbouring Tanzania at a higher cost, leading to an increase in the price of maize flour, used for making ugali, a staple for the country’s households.

Mr Bett said the ministry had adopted a policy that would see stocks at the Strategic Grain Reserve last for no more than two years before they are sold.

The committee's vice-chairman Kareke Mbiuki directed the CS to state the amount of loss to taxpayers after 2.3 million bags were downgraded and sold for use in manufacturing animal feed, after overstaying in the NCPB silos.

Mumias East MP Ben Washiali questioned how the government had been able to account for maize stocks not in its custody, saying the figure of 4.4 million bags alleged to be with farmers, could be inaccurate since the country was reeling from bad harvests.

MPs said the country was a liberalised market and government could not claim what was in the hands of farmers and traders, as part of the strategic food reserve, saying they could as well have sold it to neighbouring countries and not necessarily the NCPB.