Premium
KTDA vice chair vacancy sparks heated succession battle
Erick Chepkwony casting his vote on June 28, 2024 at Chepchabas tea buying centre in Konoin, Bomet county during the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) zonal elections, where he was elected a director and went on to become the agency's zone nine chairperson and vice chairman KTDA Holdings. Mr Chepkwony collapsed and died in Nairobi on Wednesday evening, May 21, 2025.
The race to fill the late Erick Chepkwony’s seat as vice chairman of Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) has kicked off, with at least three candidates already in the fray for one of the most influential positions in the country’s tea industry.
The role is crucial, overseeing operations that touch over 680,000 small-scale tea farmers across 77 factories in 21 counties, making it a key driver of Kenya’s largest agricultural export sector.
Mr Chepkwony who was also the Chief Officer for Finance at Bomet County Government, collapsed and died in Nairobi while attending a KTDA finance committee meeting on May 21, 2025.
He was elected vice chairman on August 23, 2024, in Mombasa, where former chairman Enos Njeru retained his position.
Although a boardroom coup on January 23, 2025 saw long-serving director and High Court advocate Chege Kirundi elected as chairman, Mr Chepkwony retained his vice-chair position.
Engineer Samson Mosonik Menjo has been elected as KTDA Zone Nine regional (Bomet County) chairperson, a position formerly held by Chepkwony, as part of the ongoing succession process. After his election at the regional level on August 18, 2025, Mr Menjo declared his interest in the vice-chairmanship.
Other candidates include Philip Kipkemoi Langat, representing Zone Eight and James Omweno Ombasa, representing Zone Eleven.
A total of 15 KTDA board directors from the East and West Rift regions will sit to vote on the position, with the date expected to be announced next week.
The candidates have already begun lobbying directors.
“I am gunning for the position of KTDA vice chairman, and I appeal to directors from all zones to support my candidature so we can help turn around the fortunes of tea growers in the country,” Mr Menjo told the Daily Nation.
The former Bomet County Executive for Roads said ongoing KTDA board reforms were beginning to bear fruit despite market challenges caused by instability in traditional destinations for Kenyan tea.
Mr Omweno and Mr Langat added that more needs to be done by the board, government and other stakeholders to expand Kenyan tea markets and enable farmers to earn premium prices.
Also Read: Reforms to save KTDA from collapse timely
At the KTDA Kapsinendet zonal level, the late Chepkwony has been replaced by his elder brother Edward Chepkwony, in an election held on July 28, 2025, presided over by IEBC. Zone Nine directors and small-scale tea growers are keen to retain the vice-chairmanship slot, which is expected to be filled in the coming days.
Last year, KTDA contracted IEBC for the first time to oversee elections from the zonal to national level to enhance fairness and transparency. KTDA zonal directors Leonard Kering (Embomos), Edwin Soi (Koiwo) and John Mutai (Boito) expressed confidence that Zone Nine would retain the position.
“We are confident the vice-chairmanship will remain in Bomet County, with Menjo, a long-serving director, who understands the challenges facing the tea industry,” Mr Kering said.
KTDA is working with the national government to expand international markets for Kenyan tea to boost farmers’ earnings, which have declined over the past four years. Last year, a crisis at the Mombasa Tea Auction left 100 million metric tonnes of KTDA tea unsold due to unfavourable prices.
The government has since suspended sections of the Tea Act, 2020, allowing factories to directly export tea without going through the Mombasa Auction. Factories are also encouraged to embrace value addition to capture premium global markets.
Production of orthodox tea for markets in Japan, Russia, China, Germany, Iran, France, and countries in the Middle East and Eastern Europe is being promoted. Kenya continues to rely on black CTC (Cut, Tear, and Curl) tea for traditional export markets, including Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Sudan, Kazakhstan, and Poland, while expanding into China, India, Korea, Australia, Switzerland, Iran, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, and Morocco.
The government will release Sh3.4 billion to KTDA-managed factories in the current financial year, and a 20percent tax on tea packaging materials has been scrapped to reduce business costs.
Kenya earned Sh215.21 billion from tea sales in 2024, with Sh181.69 billion from exports, both bulk and value-added. KTDA paid a record Sh89.29 billion for green leaf supplies, up from Sh67.7 billion in 2023.
KTDA Chairman Chege Kirundi said the push to increase prices for the benefit of small-scale growers is beginning to bear fruit. “Tea marketing challenges are not new; they trace back to the last five governments. The KTDA board has received support from successive administrations in addressing them,” he said.
