1979 food crisis: ‘Briefcase firms’, dirty tricks and the SA deal that saved Kenya

My first challenge as a Cabinet minister was how to handle a serious food shortage after a national grain deficit of 1979/80.

Ironically, there had been in 1978, a celebrated announcement of a bumper grain harvest countrywide. By a Cabinet paper, the Ministry of Agriculture requested for exportation of the grain to needy areas such as Sudan. In a twist of fate in late 1979, it was discovered that there was very little maize in the stores and silo bins of the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB). The nation was thrown into panic.

An emergency committee consisting of the Office of the President, the Treasury, the Ministry of Economic Planning and the Ministry of Agriculture was formed to look into ways and means of importing maize. I chaired this committee, which met at my ministerial office. We sent urgent telephone and telex messages overseas in search of maize.

President Moi made personal appeals to friendly countries to help. He even made a trip overseas, specifically for this purpose. It was that serious. In his earlier pronouncements, the President told the nation that he would not allow his people to eat yellow maize.

Now the nation was in a fix and we had to accept yellow maize as the only way out. The Ministry of Agriculture stopped all the factories using maize for industrial manufacture from producing anything that was not for human consumption.

MIX YELLOW AND WHITE MAIZE

Maize millers were directed to mix yellow maize and white maize to a ratio which was approved by the President himself so the yellow maize would produce whitish flour.

The ministry officials spent long hours with the millers discussing how to distribute the little flour which was being produced then. There were scenes of people in urban centres queuing for maize meal and other foodstuffs which had also disappeared from the market.

Millers suggested to the government that all available maize should be made into flour so that they could close down to reduce operation overheads. On behalf of the government, I refused this suggestion, arguing that when wananchi discover that mills were closing down because there was no more maize in the country, it may have chaotic consequences. The maize crisis required a serious political balancing act.

Moi was just one year into his presidency when all this was happening. Charged with the responsibility of making food available to the nation, I had to make several visits to national millers in Nairobi and to keep a close check on other millers in various urban areas using the provincial commissioners’ network. There were many sleepless and agonising nights for me. The President had to be kept in the picture about the food crisis daily.

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The country was not spared rascals who cashed in on this unfortunate situation to get rich. Dubious companies were floated both in the country and overseas to cash on tenders that were being advertised for the importation of maize.

Several of these won some of the tenders but could not perform as they had never got in touch with any white maize owners. Remember, only white maize was being tendered for.

When I insisted to know from every supplier the names of ships which were loading, the port at which they were loading, the date of sailing and the approximate date of docking in Mombasa, I was accused by a senior civil servant of trying to dig too much into the operations of the importation committee. I duly informed the Head of State about this malicious pretence.

The information I wanted was necessary during the crisis because the distribution of the available maize had to be regulated according to the arrival of any maize supply.

This had to be done to keep up the morale of the consumers. There are few cases when some powerful tenderers were paid but they never delivered any maize to the Board. The faceless suppliers simply delivered air.

As I was busy trying to follow up things to ensure everything was done above board and to ensure Kenyans do not lose hope in the government, it occurred to me that I was fighting shadowy figures who controlled Kenya’s maize underworld.

One very interesting incident happened when a highly placed individual who later became a Minister in the Moi cabinet, hurriedly floated a company in London with a certain Italian gentleman as his partner. They tendered to supply 60,000 tons of white maize within 28 days from the time of the acceptance of the tender.

WHITE WHISTLEBLOWER

The company was also to be paid by irrevocable letter of credit from NCPB to its London office. The tender was accepted and awarded.

A good natured mzungu, the kind we nowadays call ‘whistleblower’, came to my office and informed me that what the company had given as an address was just a room in one of the back street buildings in London’s Soho area. It was fictitious, and the Italian was a known con-man.

This information was relayed to the Head of State who immediately dispatched a Permanent Secretary in his office to investigate this scandal in London. Feedback from the PS confirmed what the mzungu told me as true. 60,000 tons of white maize in two ship-loads never arrived in Kenya.

Meanwhile, another scandal had been introduced right inside the maize mills. The mills were selling their products to selected distributors who took their allocation to destinations beyond Nairobi.

It was rumored that distributors ferried the maize to Mount Kenya for dumping and destruction so as to cause an artificial shortage countrywide.

In my capacity as the Minister for Agriculture, I paid an impromptu visit to one of the maize mills in Nairobi and found 13 trucks lined up for loading. I instructed my driver to carefully take note of the registration numbers.

Fortunately, my personal driver was not in uniform on this particular day so he went undetected and wrote down the registration numbers of all the vehicles. From the mill in Industrial Area, I drove straight to State House and requested to see the President. Fortunately, at that time, the Comptroller of State House understood the responsibilities of Cabinet ministers to the President, so I was allowed in without much fuss.

The report of the vehicles plus their registration numbers were given to the President who quickly telephoned the Director of Intelligence Services in my presence and instructed him to intercept all of them.

And sure enough, they were all blocked near the Blue Post Hotel moving towards Murang’a. They returned to Nairobi and their contents offloaded at one of the NCPB godowns. Nairobi distributors were waiting to buy their allocated quotas. This might have been one of the tricks to destabilise the Moi government.

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DEAL WITH SOUTH AFRICA

The shortage of maize was growing from bad to worse and so far only two ships had arrived and off-loaded their cargo, which had to be transported from Mombasa to Nairobi using National Youth Service and Kenya Army lorries. The maize had to be carefully distributed so as not to leave a vacuum in the milling industry.

As the country was desperately looking for white maize, the acting General Manager of the NCPB, a holder of a British passport, came to my office and informed me that he had information that South Africa had white maize to sell and they were willing to discuss details with Kenya if the government was willing to send a minister down for discussion.

I told him that the government would not accept to send a minister to South Africa to discuss the purchase of maize. Kenya and South Africa had no diplomatic ties and could not do official business such as buying maize.

I ordered him to go to South Africa that day since he had a British passport and find out about the maize, the quantity available, the price and shipment condition.

IMPRESSED THE PRESIDENT

He left that very evening and came back after one day with a message. The message was that the South African Cereals Marketing Authority had agreed to sell to the NCPB 60,000 tons of white maize from its storage bins at Beira Port in Mozambique — one ship was already loading at Beira Port which could be directed to Kenya if the government accepted their offer price.

The officer was directed to go to Beira and negotiate the payment terms and documentation since the seller was maize originated in South Africa. He was also directed to commit the NCPB for the payment of 30,000 tons already loaded at the port. The price was good compared to the prices which had been quoted by the already submitted tenders.

The payment was to be made to a company in Beira and the accompanying documents doctored to indicate Mozambique as the country of origin. When this information was received, I authorised the board to arrange for immediate payment of the 60,000 tons of maize.

It was when all these arrangements had been made that I informed the President. He was angry about what we had done because Kenya was committed not to trade with South Africa.

When I explained to him the cover up arrangements in the deal, he was delighted. He was further impressed when I told him that the first shipment would arrive the following week, quick enough to save Kenyans from a catastrophe.