House team probes firm over Sh600m debt owed to farmers

BY MUNENE KAMAU

Kenya's Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture is investigating a micro-finance institution in Kirinyaga over Sh600 million it owes rice farmers from the giant Mwea Irrigation Scheme.

The House team has consequently summoned the management committee of the cash-strapped Mwea Multipurpose Cooperative Society to appear before it to defend themselves against accusations of financial malpractices.

Committee chairman John Mututho directed that the management meets them on November 25. Also to appear are farmers owed by the Sacco to give evidence into the alleged scam.

The farmers claim they delivered rice to the Sacco in 1998, 1999 and 2000, but have never been paid.

They delivered their produce to the institution after the National Irrigation Board, through which they used to deliver the produce, was forced out of the giant scheme.

"After the ejection of National Irrigation Board, we delivered our bumper harvest to the Sacco. As farmers we also contributed Sh6 million to offset a debt that the board was demanding from us and all that money was taken through the Sacco yet we have never been paid a cent," claimed Ms Carolyne Wamarwa, one of the farmers.

Public hearing

The Agriculture committee was in Mwea for a public hearing of the matter at the weekend, where farmers accused the Sacco.

The committee was told a recent inquiry report had revealed that the Sacco owed farmers Sh600 million for their unpaid produce. It also indicted a few individuals, including a former area MP, owes them Sh10 million.

Mr Mututho, who was accompanied by committee members Benson Mbai, Victor Munyaka, Erastus Mureithi and Peter Gitau during a tour of Mwea Irrigation Scheme also directed the Ministry of Agriculture to submit its findings on the alleged use of the banned Furadan chemical within the giant scheme in two weeks time.

The committee was told the Sacco management had ordered the farmers to use the chemical on their rice fields yet the highly poisonous substance had been banned from the Kenyan market.

The parliamentarians later toured the Mwea Rice Mills where the farmers used to deliver their crop for milling before the board was kicked out.

"We will not leave any stone unturned in unearthing the rot that brought this scheme down and impoverished rice farmers," said Mututho.

The Naivasha MP said the Sh12 billion the Japanese government had granted the scheme for expansion would turn around rice farming into an agribusiness.