BY JEFF OTIENO
WAR STILL RAGES AT KSB OVER FERTILIZER
The Chief Executive of Kenya Sugar Board Rose Mkok is on the spot light over a staggering Ksh 1 billion earmarked for fertilizer purchase.
A group of farmers led by Tom Otieno Onyango from the larger southern Nyanza Sugar belt growing region have already written to all government agencies including the Kenya Anti Corruption Commission to promptly take all the necessary action to avert what they described as ‘day light theft’ by the Kenya Sugar Board.
The Board recently placed an advert in the local dailies inviting bidders and the bidding period is slated to close on 26th /5/2009. According to the enraged farmers, the board has no mandate what so ever to import the said fertilizer.
They further took issue with the Ministry of agriculture for siding with the board over the impending dubious purchase.
“The money should be used to develop farms and improve cash strapped factories which are heavily indebted,” they argued in a terse statement.”
“Some of the factories like Chemelil Sugar Company in Nyando District have not done maintenance for ages yet the board is sitting on the money,” they noted.
The group went on to allege that Kenya Sugar Board has already conspired with a clique of powerful Politicians in the Sugar belt areas to defraud farmers through the ‘illegal’ fertilizer purchase.
“Mkok is just a pawn of a powerful clique,” Onyango thundered.
Inside sources within Kenya Sugar Board confided to the press how the impending ‘fictitious’ purchase has divided the board with one divide saying the purchase is justified while the other is emphatic that the whole thing is just but a scheme to line the pockets of a few money hungry individuals.
Last week when the Board met to deliberate on the issue, a clique of members who are not for the purchase were allegedly intimidated with suspensions in a bid to cow them in order to succumb to pressure.
The farmers further urged the CEO to run the body professionally instead of operating as a political activist.
END.
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Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 23:32:26 -0700 [01:32:26 AM CDT]
From: JEFF
Subject: WAR STILL RAGES AT KSB OVER FERTILIZER
Please explain how a certain sugar ceo owns so much property in Nairobi and Kisumu and the anti corruption has not caught up with them. The Kisumu rot has to be cleaned. Some owning mansions which if calculated their salaries could not pay for and they have no other business. Something very dirty is going on and the faster we clean up the rot and the journalists need to report on these people because they are threatened the better it will be for Kisumu. Zero tolerance for these thieves and the indians are also very dirty in the way they have been doing business .