POLITICALLY MOTIVATED AND SPONSORED PUBLICITY LIKELY TO HARM FUTURE INVESTMENTS BY MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES IN THE TEA SUB-SECTOR OF THE ECONOMY.

Business News By Leo Odera Omolo In Kericho Town.

POLITICALLY motivated and sponsored publicity aimed at maligning the multinational tea companies operating in the South Rift of the Rift Valley Province has sparked off a lot of controversy in the tea growing regions of Kericho, Bureti,Boimet and Sotik..

Residents of the larger Kericho region have now come out in full force with an appeal to the government to restrain some of its Ministers from using these economically important multinational tea companies as their “punching bags” for gaining political mileage.

The resident said, they have read malice on the part of unnamed politicians in the region following the recent series of maliciously damaging remarks against James Finlay’s Tea and Flower Company Ltd, one of the major tea manufacturers in the region.

Residents and parents at the Marinyn Secondary School, which is privately owned by James Finlays Tea Company, and which is situated close to their Saosa Tea Estate and Factory are irked by the report that the school has the highest number of girls pregnancies.

They said, however, that the high cases of girls pregnancies is not a new and an unusual phenomenon in the region, and furthermore, not the exclusive preserve of the Marinyn Secondary School alone, but a common feature in most of the mixed secondary schools within the Kipsigis region, where the girls and boys are mixing together in one class

Some of the boys are also adult men capable making sexual advances to their classmate girls. There is no point in politicians vilifying or condemning this school. After all , the school was the second best in the last year’s KSCE exam the district.

These pregnancies could as well be attributed to abject poverty of the girls parents, most of whom are low-paid farm workers engaged in tea plucking manual jobs. There is also, in addition, the presence of a large number of farm workers, who are teasing and seducing the school girls attending classes in unsecured school compound.

There are other schools with worse record of poor performance than Marinyn Secondary Schools, and many of such schools re located within the vast Belgut constituency. The high profile and personal interests placed on this particular school by politicians, and ,particularly the are MP, is only pointing out to the direction of a hidden agenda and ulterior sinister motive.

According to the residents, a prestigious media house, whom one of the top directors hails from Belgut, has been drafted into slanderous campaign because of its perceived disagreement with an individual serving selfish interests. A batter of journalists and TV cameramen were recently sent Marinyin school specifically to discredit its leadership.

Also, for the purpose of distorting and concocting stories against this particular firm and its facilities One local politician in Kiptere area, who requested for hi anonymity, told this writer that he believed the current farce is meant to divert the public attention from more serious issues affecting the constituency. For instance, school bursary fund and other devolving money from the government meant for development projects, have so far not been funded, despite the money having budgeted and allocation done. No cheques have been forthcoming to the schools.

It is believed by the residents that the bad blood between the area MP and the Tea company is said to have started when the company refused to engage the MP in a very lucrative transport business with the Finlay company in partnership with his friends. At one time, had wanted to supply the Finlay with firewood and electrical wood polls at an alleged highly inflated prices.

The hostility between Keter, according to a source in Finlay Tea Company, came to light when the MP rudely rejected a company cheque of Kshs 10,000. The company had sent the money as its donation. The cheque was conveyed to the venue of the fund drive by a junior manager from the company, but the MP and his friends dismissed the donation, saying it was delivered by a junior manager instead of its top brass bosses. This was viewed as disrespectful to the political leadership of the area and the cheque was out rightly rejected and returned to the firm with a stern warning about the shape of things to come.

Within a month, Keter, in the company of close to 16 civic leaders from both the County Council of Kipsigis and Kericho Municipality, attended an education day rally held at Kaproret Stadium, which is owned by Finlay Tea Company. A lot of vitriol and scathing criticism were directed at the Tea Company by one speaker after another , and it was at this meeting where it was resolved that the MP would mobilize his constituents to stage street demonstration and match into the tea estates, to seek and destroy the tea picking machines. The group claimed these machines would kick thousands of their people out manual tea plucking jobs.

But courtesy of the Provincial Administration and district security committee ,the protest match did not materialize. This was also due to timely intervention of the Road Minister, Franklin Bett, whose dynamism and political magnanimity worked well in averting what could have been otherwise a violent protests match into the tea industry. The government also got the wind that the workers were reluctant and not willing to take part in work stoppage not called by their union.

The strike was planned to take place while the firebrand Secretary General of the Kenya Union of Plantation and Agricultural Workers, Francis Atwoli, was out of the country attending an ILO meeting in Geneva, although a branch secretary of the union at Kericho town okayed the action, which could have been termed as “Industrial Unrest”. It later emerged that this union man was a lone ranger who had acted without the workers consent. Other sources said the government intervened.

Immediately after this, a consultative meeting between the stakeholders; in this case, the union, Keter’s group and the management of the multinational tea companies had a meeting. The meeting took place in Hon Bett’s Nairobi office and was chaired by Bett himelf, whose Buret constituency in Bureti district is also covering part of the Tea Estates.

At the Nairobi meeting, all had agreed that a team of MPs from the Kipsigis region would soon tour the tea estates to assess the situation, particularly the damage that could be caused by the mechanized tea plucking system to the workers. It was also agreed that Keter himself, as an interested party should be excluded. Three months have lapsed. without such a mission.

Again, while commenting on the ongoing Mau Forest controversy, Keter was recently quoted by a section of local press as saying that the illegal Kalenjin settlers ,particularly those facing eviction from Mau, should be given the land on which the tea plantations and bushes stand, because it belonged to their ancestors and it was taken from them by force by the British colonial rulers.

Historically, the pioneer white settlers, who started tea plantations in Kericho region in 1908, in small experimental scale ,and later led to full blast tea growing in the region, and the beginning of the manufacturing in 1922, got there decades long before the current generation were born, and there is no way the massive land grabbing in Mau water tower could be linked to the tea estates.

It also came to light during my survey, that some unpatriotic manager, serving with the tea companies, and some disgruntled former managers, who have since retired from active services of the companies, are the ones secretly working in collaboration with the likes of Keter. These managers wanted to be promoted to the higher ranks through short-cut, using dubious academic qualifications.

The Belgut MP is also being accused of misusing his ministerial position to intimidate those who cross swords with him. But fears persist that the Minister’s open hostility to the industrialists could harm the economy and scare away potential investors.

Another important politician, the chairman of the United Democratic Movement, {UDM} Lt.Gen [rtd}John Koech, has repeatedly made a passionate appeal to his fellow Kipsigis politicians to leave the tea companies alone , saying these firm were playing pivotal role not only of creating employment opportunities for the locals, but also contributing immensely towards development of the Kenyan nation.

Education officials in Kericho said they were puzzled by such an abrupt visit to the school by Keter. ”We had no idea as to what was happening”. The MP, they said seemed to have a hidden agenda and perhaps a bone to chew with the Finlay tea company, than the simple school issues and the alleged rampant pregnancies of girls in that school and their staff.

The visit came hardly a week after the team from the Standard, consisting top journalists and TV Cameramen, had spent the whole day at the school earlier last week, giving credence to the allegation that the journalists were partly hired to discredit the Finlay Tea Company. The Principal of the Marinyin School, Mr Ruto could not be reached for his comments. And also unavailable for the same was the Company CEO, Mr. Hutchinson.

leooderaomolo@yahoo.com
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From: Leo Odera Omolo
Date: Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 10:26 PM
Subject: MINISTER KETER TOLD TO LEAVE MULTINATIONAL TEA COMPANIES ALONE