Senate passes radical Tea Bill

The country’s tea sector is headed for a major overhaul after senators passed the radical Tea Bill.

If signed into law, the Bill, a brainchild of Kericho Senator Aaron Cheruiyot, will clip the powers of the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) and revive the Kenya Tea Board.

Tea is Kenya’s third-largest foreign exchange earner, contributing about four per cent to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

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But a majority of farmers, especially the small scale farmers, have nothing to show for it.

The Bill ensures tea auction management, buyers and brokers pay farmers within 14 days of the sale. Factories must also pay 50 per cent of the sales to farmers.

Sometimes, farmers have even had to wait longer for full payments - popularly known as bonus. The law will also tighten the management of tea factories owned by smallholder farmers. They are 69 in 16 counties.

Former Premier Raila Odinga had rallied the senators to pass the Bill, noting that reforming the sector was a matter of “life and death.”

“Tea farmers are suffering because of cartels that have taken over the industry to reap where they have not sown,” Raila said in a statement.

“It has been the usual tale of conflict of interest, lack of transparency, the impunity that includes disobeying court orders, corruption and wrong attitude that has killed many sectors before, getting entrenched in KTDA.”

Raila said reforms in the tea sector were key in achieving the country’s economic recovery through agriculture. He said the same could be applied to other ailing sectors such as sugar and maize.

Deputy President William Ruto had earlier asked senators to pass the Bill.

He said passage of the Bill would help address challenges a majority of small-scale farmers face.

Peter Ndwiga, the Embu senator and chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, told the House that KTDA operations had become so “opaque” and farmers were miserable.

“We want all small-scale farmers to feel ownership of their tea factories,” he said, adding that the tea auction was not the best place for price realisation.

He stated that another progressive proposal was that within eight years, tea managers start a process of value addition for a minimum of 40 per cent of the tea they take for production.

He welcomed the re-introduction of the Tea Board, saying that it was the only way the government could pump in money to boost the sector.

“We expect that apart from regulating the sector, the government gives funds to the board to assist tea farmers,” he said.

Nyeri Senator Ephraim Maina, who comes from a tea-growing region, termed the Bill landmark legislation. He said that the misery of farmers was all too real and the industry would now be safeguarded.

“When tea prices started collapsing, it’s not because there’s no money globally … KTDA was working before but for some reason, today, farmer’s money has been invested in non-productive areas and they end up getting nothing.”

Earlier this month, the National Assembly also passed the Bill in a sitting that extended late into the night, pointing out the intense efforts to bring it into law.

Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya had also been pushing for reforms in the sector but the regulations were blocked by the Senate.

Under the Tea Bill 2018, a new tea levy is to be imposed on all tea sales at the auction to finance the Tea Board of Kenya and Tea Research Foundation.

Last week, the Council of Governors wrote to senators asking them to review their stand on the Bill as some issues affected devolution.

In a letter to the Senate Clerk, Jackline Omogeni, the governors’ council chief executive said that some clauses in the Bill affect devolved units.

Also to come under government regulation will be the Mombasa Tea Auction with brokers, buyers and the auction organisers — the East African Tea Trade Association — subject to the new rules.