The fight for Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) chairmanship position has kicked off with four candidates lined up against incumbent Enos Njeru.
The poll to be presided over by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) which is a culmination of grassroots election that has lasted two months will be held on August 23, 2024.
A total of five regional directors from the 19 tea producing counties will fight it out for the position which has been declared vacant by IEBC which for the first time in the history of the agency is managing the poll.
Mr Njeru will face off with - Mr Erick Chepkwony the zone nine chairman, Mr Chege Kirundi, Mr John Wa Susana and Mr Gabriel Kagombe, the Gatundu South Member of Parliament are running against Mr Njeru in the poll.
Mr Njeru confirmed that he is defending his seat and was confident of retaining it after he succeeded immediate former chairman David Ichoho in what was regarded as a boardroom coup.
The change of guard came shortly after Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua led a three day consultative meeting for the tea sector in the country at the Kericho Gold club in July, 2023, where he promised a raft of change in the sector.
Even though Mr Ichohi was re-elected as a zonal director, he was defeated in the Regional directorship by Mr Kagombe who doubles up as a Member of Parliament.
“I am confident that under my leadership in the last one year, KTDA has been able to cover a lot of ground in marketing in collaboration with the Tea Board of Kenya (TBK), the government and other stakeholders” Mr Njeru said.
Mr Chepkwony who is a KTDA board member is serving his second term as a director and is also the immediate former chairman of Kapset Tea Factory in Bomet County.
“Our focus is to create wide market linkages for the tea produced by small scale tea growers across the country and seek to raise earnings and open up more employment opportunities” Mr Chepkwony told the in Bomet, the leading tea producing zone in the country.
Mr Chepkwony said “The tea sector has been a leading foreign exchange earner in the country and there are opportunities to be tapped into with a focus on specialty teas production and marketing. This will fetch more money to the pockets of the farmers”
Mr Kagombe said when contacted for a comment on Friday that he was held up and was not free to talk and that he would contact us when he is through. But he had not responded by press time.
The office bearers to be elected will steer the tea sector affairs for the next three years and will have to deal with the glut at the Mombasa Tea Auction that has persisted for the last one year.
Principal Secretary for Agriculture Paul Kipronoh Ronoh recently admitted that 100 million kilograms of tea remained unsold at the Mombasa tea auction.
Dr Ronoh said the government was seeking for a repeal of the Tea Act 2021, to allow for direct sale of tea and that the reserve price mechanism shall be reviewed.
KTDA has 59 factories it manages on behalf of 600,000 small scale tea growers in 21 counties with volumes expected to rise.
A bulk of the tea produced in Kenya is sold at the Mombasa Tea Auction which is a regional auction hub for tea from Tanzania, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Malawi, Rwanda, Madagascar, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.
For decades, Kenya has been dependent on the black CTC (Cut, Tear and Curl) tea to feed her traditional export market outlets – Pakistan, United Kingdom, Egypt, Sudan, Kazakhstan and Poland.
China, India, Korea, Australia, Switzerland, Iran, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, and Morocco among others are new markets that KTDA and TBK and marketing agencies have secured in a bid to raise export volumes.
A special focus is being given to the production of orthodox tea by KTDA, with huge market openings in Japan, Russia, China, Germany, Iran, France, and countries in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.
President William Ruto recently said the country is banking on processing and selling of specialty teas to expand the export market.
He said the ambitious plan will see a rise in the value added and branded tea by 41 percent in the next five years with the volumes having increased from five to the current nine per cent in the last two years.
Dr Ruto said earnings from tea shot up from Sh 140 billion in 2022 to Sh 180 billion in 2023 and is projected to rise to Sh 210 billion in 2024 due to the opening of export markets through government initiatives.
Dr Ruto said the government will assist KTDA factories in the country to set up units in its factories to process orthodox tea which is in high demand and fetches high prices in the foreign market.
“It cannot be that 60 years after independence, we are still exporting 90 percent of our tea unprocessed. Kenya’s tea is a high premium produce that is used to blend those from other countries, an issue we must deal with by branding our own produce” Dr Ruto said.
Dr Ruto made the remarks when he opened the Kenya Tea Packers (Ketepa) Chai Gold value addition unit at the Kenya Tea Packers (Ketepa) in Kericho which is a common user facility for tea growers in the West of Rift region in the country which covers – Kericho, Bomet, Narok, Nandi, Kisii, Nakuru, Nyamira.
The President stated that out of the Sh2 billion required to upgrade the common user facility in Kericho for the West of Rift region and set up another one in Nairobi for the East of Rift, the government will allocate Sh1 billion while KTDA is expected to raise a similar amount.
