How politicians, power brokers are angling for maize billions

Stacks of maize at the Eldoret National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) depot. 12-11-2018. [Kelvin Tunoi, Standard]

As the political dust kicked up by last year’s campaign season settles down, well-connected honchos who raked in billions of shillings by selling cheaply imported maize to the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB), have once again designed a new, politically-charged scheme to fleece taxpayers.

In a well-choreographed campaign driven by a section of legislators, these people, having succeeded in condemning the millions of bags of maize in NCPB silos, are now lobbying for the Government to pay them an absurdly higher price of between Sh3,200 to 3,600 for a bag of 90-kilogramme of the cereal that they plan to deliver to NCPB.