A court ruling on Wednesday, March 24, suspended the executive order issued by President Uhuru Kenyatta directing elections of Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) directors in all tea factories before Wednesday, May 12.
The KTDA directors, through their lawyer, Benson Millimo, had filed a petition in court, arguing that Uhuru has no powers to order a private company to undertake elections.
“The President has no iota of justification in law and or fact in seeking to interfere with the Petitioner’s lawful business, affairs and internal management,” Millimo stated in court.
The lawyer argued that the order is a plot to take over and control KTDA operations. He appealed to the judge to suspend Uhuru's directive to have the agency's elections conducted within 60 days.
The agency affirmed that the directive would result in it having two parallel sets of directors given the existence of a current board.
KTDA is a private company with 54 tea companies, with over 600,000 small farmers as individual stakeholders.
Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya initially disclosed that the government is considering to takeover KTDA and have it revert to a State agency.
This comes at a time when Uhuru has issued two Executive Orders on the reforms in the Coffee and Tea Sub-Sectors, according to a statement released by the State House
Uhuru ordered Munya to give remedial measures to ensure that profit margins by the agency are reflected in the farmers' incomes.
Further, Uhuru ordered Attorney General Kihara Kariuki to investigate compliance breaches allegedly committed by KTDA and its directors. After the order, Munya sought new directors to take up governance within the agency.
