Kiunjuri gazettes miraa implementation team five months since appointment

Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mwangi Kiunjuri has finally published a gazette notice establishing the Miraa Taskforce Implementation Committee five months after it was appointed.

The expanded committee now has 13 members and is to be chaired by Kello Harsama, the Administration Secretary at the Agriculture Ministry.

“The committee may from time to time with the approval of the CS co-opt any other members whose competence and experience it considers necessary,” Kiunjuri said in the Kenya Gazzete notice dated October 25.

The appointment is only for one year, but with an option of extension and the main work would be to develop an implementation plan guided by the report of the former task force that was presented to the president mid last year.

The team is also to develop a regulatory framework for the miraa industry after the crop was recognised as a cash crop.

Although the members recently concluded a two week preliminary ground visit to Meru, Embu and Tharaka Nithi counties, they reliably could not earn allowances without having been gazetted.

Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Richard Lesiyampe wrote to nine of the members in late May notifying them of their appointment.

Those included Meru County Secretary Rufus Miriti and David Muthuri who were in the original task force.

The team

Embu Agriculture Executive Anne Nyaga was also named in the team.

Others included appointees of legislators in miraa-growing zones - John Mukiira (Tigania East), Joseph Gabriel (Igembe Central), Kobia  Michubu (Igembe North) and Morgan Gitonga (Igembe South).

Jervasius Nyombyekothe represents the Mbeere Embu Miraa Co-operative Union and Kimathi Munjuri the Nyambene Miraa Traders Association (Nyamita).

Those newly named into the committee are politician Leon Ndubai to represent Tigania West and Clement Muyesu who is the head of Pyrethrum, Miraa and other Industrial Crops Directorate at Agriculture and Food Authority (Afa).

Dr Elijah Gichuru, the Coffee Research Centre director, has been seconded by Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organisation (Karlo).