Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mwangi Kiunjuri has blamed Israeli firm Green Arava for the collapse of the multi-billion-shilling government irrigation project, Galana-Kulalu, accusing them of inflating expenses.
According to Business Daily, for the first time, the CS admitted publicly that the project had been marred with corruption.
Kiunjuri stated that Green Arava had been spending Ksh 67,000 per acre on other expenses that are related to farming but Ksh 90,000 on fuel component alone.
“Since National Irrigation Board (NIB) took over in the current season, the cost of production has come down to a maximum of Ksh 45,000 per acre, having more than halved what the contractor has been spending,” Kiunjuri revealed.
Another instance of inflation, says the CS, emerged from the Ksh700 million bill that the contractor was demanding before unclogging the water intake that runoff had blocked. Kiunjuri stated the NIB only used Ksh 30 million to do the same work.
“There is a question of mismanagement on this project that borders on corruption,” he explained.
Already, a team from the Presidential Delivery Unit and Attorney General’s office have visited the scheme in the wake of the new revelations.
The new development complicates the matter for the Israeli firm, with the government now contemplating terminating their contract.
The Agriculture ministry is using this revelation as a basis to argue that the controversial irrigation scheme is still viable and that it can play a key role in bridging the perennial food shortages.
“We are going to lower the cost of production from the figures that the contractor has been giving us and this will make Galana a viable project,” he maintained.
The ministry noted it had asked the president to take the risk and open the Galana project whose potential is now becoming evident.
The government has so far spent Ksh5.9 billion on the project, money that mainly went to laying the infrastructure and planting in the previous seasons. The contractor has been out of site for some time following a payment dispute between the Israeli firm and NIB.
The contractor claims the agency owes them Ksh1 billion but the board maintains it only owes Green Arava Ksh200 million.
