Orange Democratic Movement leader Raila Odinga has appealed to senators to pass the Tea Bill as a way to stop dramatic scenes seen in the past.
In a statement on Monday, Raila said senators must help the country and those ugly dramatic scenes of tea farmers uprooting their crops or promising to do so because the crop no longer pays.
“Fixing the tea sector is a critical step to putting the country on a path of economic recovery through agriculture,” he said.
Raila said the Tea Bill is critical to ensuring the financial security of the farmers.
“The Bill will ensure that tea auction organizers, buyers and brokers pay farmers within 14days from the proceeds of the sale of tea.
He said Kenya needs an urgent revival of Tea Board of Kenya and the Tea Research Foundation, which used to carry out research.
“The Bill would be an excellent Christmas and new year gift to our long-suffering farmers and economy. It would be the right thing to do,” he added.
If the Bill is signed into law, tea auction organizers, buyers, and brokers will have to ensure that the proceeds from the sale of tea are paid within 14 days, and the factory will now pay 50 per cent of receipt of the sales to the farmers. As a result, therefore, KTDA (Kenya Tea Development Agency) will no longer have access to the money since it will now be controlled at the factory level. Farmers will then receive the rest of the money at the end of the financial year.
In addition to the Tea bill giving the Agriculture CS powers to prescribe regulations for the tea auction, it also allows them to prescribe regulations for the registration of management agents, such as KTDA, and the appeal process.
The Tea Research Foundation, which used to carry our research on the sector, will also come back in the proposed law.
Management agents will no longer enter into an agreement with a tea factory without the approval of the agreement by the Tea Board.
KTDA has previously been accused of taking powers of the factory boards and running the farmers’ companies by entering into opaque agreements.
The CS will also have powers to prescribe regulations for the tea auction. At the moment, the sole tea action, East African Tea Trade Association, has taken CS Munya to court for prescribing regulations to govern the tea sector.
Farmers will now be able to monitor their tea through the value chain.
As a result, therefore, KTDA (Kenya Tea Development Agency) will no longer have access to the money since it will now be controlled at the factory level. Farmers will then receive the rest of the money at the end of the financial year.
Farmers have lamented that the agency holds a huge chunk of their money until the end of the year when they are paid the annual bonuses, leaving them to survive on loans which they receive from the agency’s affiliate companies.
