Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya on Sunday, July 31, announced that the state would be carrying a crackdown targeting millers who have hoarded their stocks and contributed to the growing maize shortage.
Speaking during Azimio la Umoja One Kenya rally in Nandi Hills, the CS noted that the crackdown was scheduled to kick off on Monday, August 1.
He explained that his ministry had already carried out an assessment of the maize millers responsible for hiding the maize hence disregarding an earlier directive by President Uhuru Kenyatta to lower unga prices to Ksh100.
"We have lowered the price of flour but there are some millers who are hoarding the product. We have started carrying out assessments where they are hiding them. We pay them money to lower the prices and they start hiding it.
"Tomorrow we shall take an action against those millers so that in every shop, the price is Ksh100 like we agreed because it is a directive from Government," stated Munya.
His announcement came at a time when supermarkets had been hit by a shortage in the supply of the crucial staple food consumed countrywide.
Some outlets were rationing the quantities customers were allowed to purchase in one go while others required the customers to purchase maize flour alongside other products from the outlets.
On July 20, the Head of State directed all millers to lower maize flour prices to Ksh100 from the Ksh230 that the product was retailing at.
The President also suspended the Import Declaration Fee (IDF) imposed on imported maize as well as the Railway Development Levy on the same.
At the time, he blamed the increase on the election cycle noting that in 2012, the price stood at Ksh70 for a 2kg packet which skyrocketed to Ksh130. The same increase was seen in 2017 when the product rose to Ksh189.
"Every election in our country has attracted an Unga crisis and at times it seems to be engineered. There is an obvious trend between the manner with which the price of Unga goes up and the tempo is taken up during elections," Uhuru stated at the time.
Soon after, supermarket outlets countrywide saw a spike in customers seeking cheap maize flour -forcing the retailers to ration the product. Customers could only purchase four packets at a time, a situation that has since worsened.
