Former Konoin MP Julius Kones was on Wednesday, May 13, involved in a road accident as he drove in his home county of Bomet.
The accident took place at around 8:30 a.m. as Kones was driving towards his house in his black Toyota Land Cruiser when he lost control and veered off the road, driving into a thicket with posts and trees behind it.
His vehicle sustained serious damage, with the bumper coming off entirely and his front tires deflated. Luckily, residents of the Kapchetinet area in Bomet rushed to the scene.
As the former lawmaker revealed, they extracted him from the vehicle before being taken to Litein Hospital for a medical assessment.
He came out of the accident unscathed, and thanked God and the area residents profusely on social media following the shocking events.
Kones was in 2013 appointed by President Uhuru Kenyatta as Chairman of the National Water Harvesting and Storage Authority (NWHSA), formerly known as the National Water Conservation and Pipeline Corporation.
A former Statistics lecturer at the University of Nairobi, he had also expressed his interest in the Bomet County gubernatorial race although his bid failed to materialise.
Kones threw his weight behind the late Dr Joyce Laboso, who ran on a Jubilee Party ticket and defeated incumbent Isaac Ruto who ran on a Chama Cha Mashinani (CCM) ticket.
He has been vocal in recent weeks on new regulations proposed by Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya for the tea industry, a major income earner in the South Rift.
Kones has supported the regulations which have faced stiff opposition from the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA).
If implemented, the regulations will loosen KTDA's grip on tea factories across the country, with analysts split on whether such a move is good or bad for the farmers.
Unlike the current situation where export earnings are held centrally in KTDA's accounts, under the new regulations the earnings will be channeled directly to individual factories.
KTDA has insisted that the new changes are 'unconstitutional' and 'punitive', insisting that they will lead to increased bureaucracy stifling growth and denting farmers' earnings.
"KTDA is fighting for its survival by trying to manipulate and coercing the staff and local farmers to group-think in order to stifle the new Tea Regulations by CS Agriculture Peter Munya. This time they are alone," Kones wrote on April 29.
