Tea sector bosses face lifestyle audit as MPs move to restore sanity

Farmers pick tea. MPs claim that some tea factories were paying farmers lower bonuses. [File, Standard]

The National Assembly now wants the Tea Board of Kenya (TBK) to conduct a lifestyle audit on the directors, clerks and other influential persons in tea factories, following complaints of exploitation, low pricing and theft of the crop grown by small-holder farmers.

The National Assembly’s Committee on Agriculture led by Tigania West MP Dr John Mutunga made the recommendations following an inquiry into the pricing of tea in Kenya as a result of complaints raised by MPs from factories in the West of the Rift Valley (WoR).