Agency protests tea factory polls
Police officers arrest a man who was causing chaos during directors’ elections of a tea factory at Kajiunduthi grounds in Tharaka Nithi County on Tuesday. The exercise to pick six new directors was marred by chaos.
The national tea agency has protested the move by the State to conduct elections for tea factory directors, terming it a contravention of the law and contempt of court.
The embattled Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA), in a statement to Saturday Nation yesterday said that despite the High Court order stopping the polls, the Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture Peter Munya has issued a directive for the tea factory directors’ elections to be held.
The agency has accused the State of meddling in the affairs of a private company indicating that the goings-on as pertaining the directors’ polls is legally inconsequential.
Further, they argued that the court order stopping elections should apply to all parties.
“The factory companies themselves, and their managing agent-KTDA-Management Service, are still restrained from holding elections by the order the CS Agriculture obtained. Being an order of the court, the same also restrained the CS Agriculture, Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) and any other persons from conducting the said tea factory directors’ elections,” reads the KTDA statement.
Lengthy arguments
In September 2020, AFA, supported by CS Munya and Attorney-General (Kihara Kariuki), went to the High Court in Nairobi to stop the 2020 tea factory companies directors’ elections whose process had commenced.
After lengthy arguments, the court ruled in favour of the factories and the KTDA-MS. It directed that the elections proceed as had been scheduled.
However, the Agriculture CS went to Mombasa High Court in his own application and obtained fresh stay orders stopping the elections.
The two court cases (Mombasa and Nairobi) have since been consolidated in Nairobi, and the matters are still ongoing in court with the order stopping elections still in force.
Protesting the issuance of directives allowing the elections to proceed, KTDA argued that the legal instruments stipulate that it is the companies themselves that call for and convene company meetings through their respective organs and offices.
“The supreme law that governs all companies registered in Kenya is the Company’s Act. The Company Articles of Association (including those of Tea Factory Companies) are drawn in line with this supreme Law.”
KTDA said the law does not exempt the line minister from unlawful external interference.
Executive order
“In the meantime, we urge the public to ignore the suggestion that the smallholder industry is failing as it is not true. The current model in Kenya is one of the few smallholder farmer-owned and run institutions in the world,” the statement concluded.
Mr Munya yesterday said though the executive order by President Uhuru Kenyatta to the Attorney-General directed him to conduct an inquiry into the alleged statutory and regulatory breaches by KTDA, there was need to extend the exercise to the Mombasa auction as KTDA controls 10 per cent of total teas on sale.
“Since KTDA is the third biggest buyer at the Mombasa auction, controlling 10 per cent of the purchases in volume terms, it was imperative to inquire about the tea trading patterns, behaviour and practices there as well,” said Mr Munya.
The CS said the auction is characterised by poor prices discovery mechanism due to manipulation occasioned by collusion between buyers, brokers and producers.
“For example, whereas the average price of tea at the Mombasa Auction for Kenya declined to an average of $2.20 per kilo in 2019 from $3.19 in 2017, that of Rwanda have been oscillating above $2.70 and that at Kolkata tea auction, which sells relatively lower quality tea, has remained at above $2.40,” he said. The auction resumed its activities on Tuesday after the raid by detectives paralysed the secondary trading on Monday.
East African Tea Traders Association (Eatta), which runs the auction, said they managed to resume trading on Tuesday.
Eatta managing director Edward Mudibo said the directive by Mr Kenyatta did not include an investigation at the auction, saying the move was not warranted.
Tight police security
Meanwhile, in Tharakanithi, newly elected Weru Tea Factory directors yesterday arrived at the facility to take over offices from the incumbents under tight police security.
Led by their chairman, Mr Gilbert Gitari Mwoga, the six newly-elected zone directors and two regional delegates were welcomed by the factory unit manager and the handover process began. Mr Mwoga said the new team will make sure that there is thorough scrutiny of financial accounts to ensure that all that had been stolen is recovered.
“We are here to take over office from directors who were yesterday dismissed by the farmers and our work starts immediately,” said Mr Mwoga.
He assured farmers that his team will represent their interests to make sure that they fully benefit from their labour unlike their predecessors who reportedly worked for KTDA.
Mr Fredrick Nyaki, the Kenya Union of Small Scale Tea Owners (KUSSTO) yesterday expressed confidence that the new team will strive to better the lives of the farmers who have been impoverished by cartels.
Reporting by Anita Chepkoech, Alex Njeru, Gitonga Marete and Gerald Andae.
