THE GOVERNMENT OF KENYA IS FAULTED FOR FAILING TO GIVE DIRECTIONS, STOPPING THE PLANNED MOVE TO RELOCATE KETEPA FROM KERICHO TO NAIROBI.
The Move is aimed at strangling the region economically.

Business Feature by Leo Odera Omolo in Kisumu City.

Politicians and tea growers in the South Rift of the Rift Valley Province and in Kisii  region are up in arms against the planned relocation of the Kenya Tea Packers{KETEPA} packaging plant from Kericho to Nairobi.

They are putting up a strong resistance against the move, which is said to be having the blessing of the directors of the Kenya Tea Development Agency {KTDA}, a  semi-parastatal body, which is managing  nearly all the tea factories, scattered in all the regions that the green tea bushes are grown.

Ketepa managers argue that they want to relocate the plant due to constant politically motivated threats against its employees as experienced during the post-election violence of January 2008, and recent issuing of hate leaflets warning members of a certain communities to vacate the area.

Originally, Ketepa was established and built between 1949 and 1950 by the Brooke Bond Tea Company, in collaboration with the Tea Growers Association of East Africa, now Kenya Tea Growers Association of Kenya, and it was called the Central Packing.

The company also established a printing plant in an area adjacent to the Central Packing, which was printing the tea packaging materials of all grades and the sizes for local and international marketing.

All the tea factories in East Africa, mostly those from Uganda and Tanzania were supplying certain quantity for packaging. And all factories in Kenya were also supplying seven per cent of the tea processed to the Central Packaging Factory in Kericho.

The firm changed hands, and the new investors moved in, in early 1978, and changed its name from the Central Packing to Kenya Tea Packers {Ketepa} Company Limited. Immediately after the changes had been effected, an attempt was made to relocated it to Nairobi.

Members of Parliament, led by the former MP for Belgut, the late Alfred Kericho, vehemently opposed the move. They argued that the move would deny their people the opportunities for employment at the plant. The government of the day concurred and the idea was abandoned altogether.

The relocation plan was in similar fashion to the government sanctioned Passion Fruit Processing Factory established by the white settlers in Sotik, which was dismantled and relocated to Thika between 1969 and 1970s.

The Kisii sent a delegation to President Kenyatta at his Gatundu home, led by the late Mzee Johnson Keragori,who was then the chairman of the Industrial and Commercial Development Corporation {ICDC}. Others in the delegation were two cabinet Ministers, the late Lawrence George Sagini and the late James Nyamweya.

The Kisii delegation frantically and desperately argued that the relocation of the plant from Sotik to Thika would deny the people of the region employment opportunity.

Kenyatta responded by telling the Kisii delegation that they had  nothing to worry about, as the Thika plant would still engage the same people it had on its  employment list in Sotik. They put forward other logistics, like the transportation cost of the raw fruits from Sotik and Kisii region to Thika, saying the cost would hurt the farmers most, through increased transport cost. But the late Kenyatta could not hear any of that, and he finally dispersed the delegation with tirades of unprintable insults, and the delegation dispersed in disarray.

The Abagusii delegation returned home, and after the information went around the villages of what had come out of President Kenyatta’s mouth, all the farmers in the region uprooted Passion Crops, which was minting millions of shilling for the resident of Kisii and Sotik regions.

The Kisii delegation, however, blamed the then Minister for Commerce and Industry, the late Dr Julius Gekonyo Kiano, for failing to advice the government on the logistics involved in the factory relocation plan.

The farmers also scaled down the growing of pyrethrum, which was another cash milking cow in Gusii  region, and they eventfully abandoned the two cash crops altogether.

The Kiposigis leaders however, never protested against the move of the Sotik factory due to the fact that the passion fruit crop was grown more on the Gusii side of the border, especially in areas like Mokomoni, Keroka, Birongo, Nyamasibi, Gesima,and Mosobeti, and in the new settlement schemes in Manga, Sotik, Nyasiongo, Kijauri  in  what is today known as Borabu district.

Now it is their turn. The tea farmers in Kericho region, led by the chairman of the Kenya Union of the Small Scale Tea owners {KUSTO} Rift Valley region, Mr Joel Chepkwony {Bwana Maendeleo}, said they were vehemently opposed to the move, which is a deliberate effort by selfish individuals to cripple the region’s economy.

Mzee Chepkwony blamed and severely criticized Mr Phillip Ng’etich, a retired former managing director of Ketepa, who is the region’s representative to the KTDA board of directors, for having not  represented the region’s farmers views effectively to the other directors.

He explained that the KTDA had deducted funds from small scale tea farmers countrywide, which it used to acquire the Ketepa factory, that was previously owned by Brooke Bond[Kenya} Ltd, now Unilever Tea Company Limited.

It is also being alleged that the Kenyatta family has the controlling shares in Ketepa, and had insisted that it must be relocated to Nairobi, so that it can serve the interest of farmers and tea factories in Central Province, at the expense of the South Rift, Nandi Hills and Kisii regions. This angle of argument could not be immediately confirmed.

Broke Bond had sold parts of its shares to the KTDA, and to certain unnamed individuals in 1978. Ketepa trade marks and logos are the most recognizable in tea production in Kenya. It is located at Brooklyn, situated about eight kilometers in the outskirt of Kericho town ,next to the main Kericho Nakuru road.

Mzee Chepkwony appealed to MPs from Western Kenya, especially those coming from the tea growing zones, like Kisii and South and North Nandi regions, to unite and lobby through their other colleagues from Nyanza and Western Provinces, against the move of the factory. He said hundreds of the company’s workers at the Kericho plant would rendered jobless.

The locals, particularly those from the Kipsigis rural area, do not need housing accommodation, as they regularly walk from their rural homes to work at the plant. It is economically important  to the community, therefore relocating the plant to Nairobi would deny them job opportunities.

The Road’s Minister, Franklin Bett, led the Kipsigis MPs in opposing the relocation of Ketepa from Kericho to Nairobi, arguing that the reasons given do not warrant the move. “It is utter nonsense to say the company is relocating to Nairobi because of insecurity for its workers, and yet the area has sufficient security agencies which could effectively handle any threat”, Bett said.

Chepkwony blamed the KTDA for the maneuvers to relocate the plant, and warned that the organization’s directors, who have attained the age of 70s should pack and go home. He is challenging the rule that entails farmers with the largest acreage of planted bushes for election as a directors of the KTDA. “This rule must be changed so that and youthful and highly educated people can serve the KTDA, and inject new ideas and management skills into its management”, said Chepkwony.

Kenya tea which is packaged by Ketepa, using state of the art machinery, is world renown for its superior quality. The company carefully selects and packs its tea blends from the best farms in Kenya, thus ensuring refreshing aroma and taste. Their blends contain 100 per cent pure Kenyan tea.

This writer once served as the Public Relation Manager with the Brooke Bonds Equatorial Limited in the late 1960s, and is very much conversant with the going ons within the tea industry.

Chepkwony has threatened that small scale tea growers in Kericho region would be sensitized and advised to stop delivery of green tea leaves to the KTDA factories in the region, and instead deliver their products to the Multinational Tea Companies factories in Kericho

Ends
leooderaomolo@yahoo.com