Who is really blame for coffee theft?

Coffee theft in Nyeri and the surrounding counties has reached epidemic levels as the Government continues keeping mum. Farmers are losing livelihoods in a country that has a police force and an elaborate licensing procedure for coffee production.

In a game that gives a hint of a major player or players, who bribe officers at all roadblocks, State stands accused of being an accessory to these well-planned heists that amount to systematic economic sabotage of people from central Kenya.

Farmers’ resources are getting stolen and taken to either a top miller or millers without any response from the police, including the CID. I recall the infamous coffee wars in Nyeri in the past that were sponsored by a miller who was well known. The question begs; has he been probed?

Is the CID boss telling farmers that he cannot storm into all the mills and demand returns of all deliveries, take stock and find out where the stolen coffee is? Is it that the various OCS’s policing the routes where the trucks ferrying the looted coffee pass, where roadblocks are religiously mounted, cannot catch the loot?

It is disgusting the levels at which breakdown of rule of law has sunk to in the Government.

Farmers are sick in the gut with abandonment. With a reported over Sh120 million stolen so far, most without any insurance cover, it is compelling that the Government not only steps in to compensate the farmers fully but also arrest the thieves, jail them, auction their properties and distribute the proceeds among all affected farmers since this plunder started. It is now time to reform regulatory bodies and put policy reforms in place.

The way State has ignored farmers is simply astounding. For example, Kenya Planters Co-operative Union is on its death bed, with millions of farmers arrears because of power struggle by cartels sponsored by the competition who have taken advantage of the power vacuum to vandalise milling machines belonging to the giant farmer’s body.