Nairobi — Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture and Livestock Mithika Linturi has summoned over 20 local maize millers on Friday to find out why they are yet to lower the prices of their respective unga brands.
This comes after a spot-check by Capital Business discovered that the maize flour prices claimed by President's spokesperson Hussein Mohammed on Monday to have dropped to between Sh159 and Sh160 were not true.
AtNaivas and Quickmart supermarkets, a two-kilo bag of Ndovu maize flour costs Sh189, Jogoo maize meal Sh208, and Pembe maize meal Sh208.
Others are Soko Maize Meal which was retailing at Sh207, and Raha Premium Kavagara Sh262.
In most supermarkets, only Ajab and Umi brands had their prices slightly lower below sh170.
In an interview with Citizen TV on Tuesday, Linturi stated that some unga brands have lowered prices as they are one of the beneficiaries of the government's decision to grant maize millers permits to import maize duty-free.
"I have called all of the maize millers who are beneficiaries for a meeting on Friday because whatever revenue the government is going to lose by way of import duty must be reflected in the reduction of the price of that commodity in the market," he said.
According to Linturi, the Kenya Kwanza government's decision to allow maize millers to import maize duty-free has benefited a number of companies, including Ajab brand.
He pointed out that the price reduction may be the result of the brand's consignment inventory starting to arrive.
Linturi stated that at the Friday meeting, he will determine the day and time when the other millers will deliver their shipments.
"They might have problems in raising the money required to import the maize or raising certain instruments for foreign trading but I will know for certain on Friday," he explained.
The permits to import the duty-free maize are set to expire in August, just about when local maize farmers reap their harvests.
In relation to that, CS Linturi said that millers who have applied for the permits but won't have bought the commodities by then, risk having their import licenses revoked.
"This is why I am calling the importers this Friday. I want to give them notice so that they can understand that if they are late in the delivery of commodities then it will not be good for them," he said.
"I will finally end up cancelling their permits, immediately there are signs that my farmers are harvesting the maize that we've been trying to support them to grow," Linturi added
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President William Ruto last week publicly announced that the cost of unga will go down.
Speaking after commissioning the Mavoko water supply project in Machakos County, President Ruto assured the public that the government was working to reduce unga prices and further urged the opposition to exercise patience.
The Head of State further explained that because the government had recently begun importing maize to increase food production, market prices would fall within the predetermined time frame.
"From next week you'll see that Unga prices will lower because we will balance. We have to make sure the maize we are importing does not hurt our farmers because it is from farmers in other countries," he said.
"The most important is the maize from our farmers here in the country because it is the one which will help us and which we depend on."
