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Nyeri coffee farmers, coffee cooperatives and factories management committees and other stakeholders follow proceedings during the event on coffee reforms.
A team made up of leaders and experts from tea and coffee growing areas wants the government to conduct an audit of all coffee co-operative societies.
The team dubbed Tea and Coffee (TeCo) Initiative has petitioned the government to have a forensic and performance audit of all societies have done to determine their status.
The memorandum that was presented to President Uhuru Kenyatta during the Mt. Kenya leaders’ meeting at Sagana State Lodge said the audit will help to determine whether leaders of the societies meet the criteria required to work in a public office. It will help determine the viability of the resources as some are formed following multiple splits. The audit will also help to establish the state of processing equipment and other technology gaps, and factories’ processing capacity.
Members of TeCo include chairperson Njeru Ndwiga (Embu senator), secretary Priscilla Nyokabi (former Nyeri Woman Rep), Co-ordinator Kabando Kabando (Former Mukurwe-ini MP), Gabriel Kago (Githunguri MP), Jude Njomo (Kiambu Town MP) and Waihenya Ndirangu (Roysambu MP). Others are Francis Ngambi an expert in Banking and Capital Markets and Mutuma Nkanata, an expert in public policy and governance.
The team expressed concerns that some societies get irregular loans from coffee marketers and questionable use of the proceeds.
The outcome of the audit, the team detailed, will determine access to any future opportunity made available by the reforms being implanted by the government in the sector, including access to the Sh3 billion Coffee Cherry Revolving Fund.
The team also asked the government to consider rehabilitating coffee factories for the reforms to yield the desired benefits. They said the factories have been neglected over extended periods of time which has led to the degradation of processing equipment.
“The majority of the equipment is in a sorry state of repair. Any effort to revitalize coffee societies will require a concurrently run program of rehabilitating and retooling factories’ equipment,” the memo read.
Repairing the factories will ensure both capacity and quality of the produce is maintained and enhanced, they said.
They said the coffee cherry fund may not achieve the required effects of improving the quality and quantity of the coffee produced in light of the current state of disrepair of pulping equipment in factories.
“Predictably, the coffee cherry fund is likely to be diverted to alternative economic activities such as dairy farming,” the memo continued, adding that using the fund to rehabilitate the factories would be most appropriate.
The team further proposed that online monitoring of the live coffee trading should commence immediately following the upgrading of hardware and software that enables live streaming at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange. They also the trading of coffee at the Nairobi Securities Exchange to commence within the next three months on a pilot basis after the formulation of the Capital Markets (Coffee Exchange) Regulations. The team also wants the State to ensure the Sh3 billion Coffee Cherry Revolving Fund starts operating in a period of three months. The fund’s operating guidelines and management team should be in place within the period of time.
They asked the government to consider offering diversified financing instruments including loan advances, bank guarantees, and related risk-sharing arrangements. This will ensure it has self-sustaining structures and adds value to the sector without becoming a charity fund. The fund should, however, be availed to coffee co-operative societies that meet a satisfactory audit rating.
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The Standard Group Plc is a multi-media organization
with investments in media platforms spanning newspaper print operations,
television, radio broadcasting, digital and online services. The Standard Group
is recognized as a leading multi-media house in Kenya with a key influence in
matters of national and international interest.
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