Friday, February 17, 2023 – The Government of President William Ruto has exposed massive theft by former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration.
In a statement, National Treasury CS Prof. Njuguna Ndung’u asked Parliament to help with investigations into the Sh4 billion paid to millers from last year’s maize subsidy programme in a move likely to land those responsible in jail.
According to Ndung’u, even though the Sh4 billion is said to have been paid to millers, they cannot trace the actual firms that received the money even as there is a claim of another Sh4 billion that processors are owed by the government.
“Parliament should assist us to investigate the Sh4 billion subsidy money because we do not have the capacity to do it ourselves as it might take a political angle,” Prof Ndung’u told the Budget Appropriation Committee of the House.
The subsidy programme took a political turn with concerns being raised that the exercise could not have reached the intended beneficiaries and that is why there is a need for investigations.
The amount of money owed to millers results from the Sh8 billion subsidy that was introduced by Uhuru to tame the high cost of flour which had topped Sh250 for a two-kilogram packet.
The scheme lowered the cost of the staple to Sh100.
The subsidy programme started shortly before the election and was largely viewed as a political tool to woo voters to support Raila Odinga of Azimio.
The millers have since August last year been demanding Sh4 billion from the Ministry of Agriculture as a balance of what the government owes them from the flour that they fed to the market during the subsidy era.
0 Comments