Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mithika Linturi, on Thursday, March 16, revealed that the government will provide cheap maize and rice by Wednesday, April 5.
Speaking to a local media station, Linturi revealed that the government had ordered a consignment of over 1 million tonnes of maize which he indicated was scheduled to land in the country in the next two weeks.
Additionally, former Meru Senator revealed that he had received a nod from President William Ruto's administration to import 1.1 million tonnes of rice.
"I also plan to publish another Gazette notice to top up the maize import by 500,000 tonnes from the initial 900,000 tonnes, so that in one month's time, we would flood this country with maize and rice.
"I'm bringing 1.1 million tonnes of rice into the country," Linturi told Citizen TV.
The CS added that the imported food products would be accessible at fair prices.
Besides importing maize and rice, Linturi disclosed that he had received approval to import 500,000 tonnes of yellow maize and soya beans.
He defended the importation of yellow maize indicating that some of the product would be used to feed the starving animals.
"April 5 latest, the kind of food that would have come into the country would be cheaper," he insisted.
The former Meru Senator further clarified that planting maize in Zambia was one of Kenya's long-term strategies to lower the cost of basic commodities in the next six months.
He concurred with Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, who indicated that Kenyans will wait another six months for the price of maize flour to go down when the country starts importing maize from Zambia.
Currently, 2kg of maize flour costs between Ksh190 to Ksh220, while a bag of maize costs north of Ksh5,000.
1kg of rice retails between Ksh130 to Ksh250, depending with the type.
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