The redeployment of National Youth Service Director-General Matilda Sakwa as the new Pyrethrum Processing Company of Kenya (PPCK) managing director caught many farmers and stakeholders unawares.
Her redeployment is coming at a critical time when the outgoing Acting Managing Director Mary Ontiri, who has been at the helm for two years, was turning around the fortunes of the ailing state agency.
“A lot has been done in the last two years. I wish my successor good luck and I hope she will pick it from where I left off and take the revival efforts to the next level,” Ms Ontiri told Nation.Africa.
The financial challenges facing the new chief executive officer at Nakuru City-based factory have been pending for more than a decade.
When issuing a posting order, Chief of Staff and Head of the Public Service Felix Koskei said: “The administration’s Bottom Up Economic, Transformation Agenda posits the agricultural value chain as a key driver for employment and wealth creation.”
He added: “In actualising this seminal agenda, the re-engineering of the pyrethrum value chain has been identified as a priority flagship programme, to enhance the earning of our pyrethrum farmers.”
Interestingly, the Kenya Kwanza Administration which was elected on the platform of reviving the key sector has done too little to resuscitate the sector that has been lying on its deathbed for more than two decades.
“This frequent change of guard at PPCK's top leadership has been there for 10 years. I Hope the redeployment of Ms Sakwa will not be the normal government public relations exercise that will not add value," said Ms Josephine Kamau, a pyrethrum farmer in the Molo area.
Pensioners’ debt that has passed the Sh2.5 billion mark , dwindling farmers’ confidence, lack of clean planting materials, low staff morale, competition and gross underfunding from the Treasury will give Ms Sakwa some sleepless nights as she settles down in unfamiliar grounds.
"As a pyrethrum farmer, I'm tired of the change of guard at PPCK by the government. I'm waiting to see what the new managing director has to offer," said a pyrethrum farmer Daniel Komu from Rongai.
At least more than 60 pensioners have died according to their spokesperson Harun Tinga and hundreds of others are ailing.
"Mary Ontiri has left a legacy of fighting for the pensioners. We hope Ms Sakwa will fast-track a Cabinet memo that was sent from Treasury last year to settle the pensioners’ arrears," said Mr Tinga.
Apart from the pensioners' issue, Ms Sakwa will be met with a factory that has been reduced into a shell.
A factory that was crushing more than 300 metric tonnes per month is today crushing about 200 metric tonnes which have been collected after several months.
Ms Sakwa will be taking over a factory that cannot propagate clean planting materials that are essential in the revival efforts, thanks to an old laboratory with equipment used during the colonial era.
In the 1980s and late 1990s, the factory used to generate more than Sh10 billion in foreign exchange annually.
The outgoing NYS boss joins a growing list of managing directors who have been appointed by the government to appease the angry farmers after a series of failed promises.
The workers' morale is at its all-time lowest level and many are not happy working for a state agency that has not raised their salaries for decades.
