22 cereal managers to be sent home

Chris Nyaoro,a maize farmer in Nyahera Kisumu county at his retarded maize farm. He is among other farmers in the region who used the government DAP subsidized fertilizer during plantation. All State officials implicated in the Sh500 million fertiliser scandal will be sacked. (PHOTO: COLLINS ODUOR/ STANDARD)

All State officials implicated in the Sh500 million fertiliser scandal will be sacked.

Making the announcement, National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) chairman Geoffrey King’ang’i cited human resource regulations that require the sacking of those implicated in graft.

“The human resource manual is very clear. If you are implicated in corruption you just have to go. But they will have a chance to defend themselves,” said Mr King’ang’i.

DISCIPLINARY ACTION

He said the decision to have them fired would be reached after they faced the board’s shop steward, an exercise that would take between two and four weeks.

Speaking in his office when he received a report from the team investigating the case yesterday, King’ang’i revealed that 80 individuals would face disciplinary action.

“It is not just the 22 NCPB officials who could get fired; there are others who will face disciplinary action. But that will be for the shop steward to decide,” he said.

According to the report that is yet to be made public, a total of 43 NCPB staff were investigated in addition to the 16 that were earlier reported.

“But there were other cases that ended up linking Ministry of Agriculture officials, suppliers, county and administrative officials, mainly chiefs. In total, there are 80 individuals implicated,” said King’ang’i.

The chairman said the team headed by Jasper Nkanya from the Ministry of Agriculture confirmed that there was malpractice in the distribution of fertiliser that happened in collusion with national government officials and people at the county level.

“Four cases are criminal in nature and we have forwarded those to the police, including the ones we had unearthed earlier,” he said.

Failure to follow guidelines, fraud, lack of oversight, poor enforcement of the guidelines and failure to report are some of the charges the 80 will be facing.

“Administrative cases like failure to report shall be dealt with at department level,” he said.