Governor Paul Chepkwony calls on President Uhuru Kenyatta to bail out small scale tea farmers

Governor Paul Chepkwony has appealed to the national government to set aside money to bail out small scale tea farmers. This comes weeks after President Uhuru Kenyatta bailed out miraa farmers with Sh1 billion.

Speaking after meeting a delegation from KokChaik Sacco, the governor said over 300,000 tea farmers in Bomet and Kericho earn very little from the cash crop and were weighed down by several taxes and loans.

"Though tea is one of the major foreign exchange earner for the country, small-scale tea farmers in South Rift have nothing to show for the crop. They are suffering under the weight of taxes and loans they took to purchase farm inputs and that is why the Government must also set aside money to bail them out and also reduce the number of taxes in the tea industry," said Chepkwony.

The governor also invited the Ethics and Anti- Corruption Commission to investigate alleged misappropriation of large sums of money at KokChaik Sacco.

"My office has been informed that members of board allegedly engaged in illegal activities resulting in the Sacco's unprecedented slam in its turnover from Sh28 million to Sh10 million. We are not going to sit back and allow any cooperative society to collapse," said Chepkwony.

The governor also urged the East African Tea Traders Association to hasten the automation of trading at its weekly Mombasa tea auction.

"This is one of the measures my administration has been agitating for in bid to increase transparency at the tea auction dealings," said Chepkwony.

He nonetheless argued that there was no reason for the country to have a single tea auction for its huge supply of tea. He added tea farmers often suffer huge loses through the lack of factories capacity to absorb the green leaf supply.