The Kenyan government recently moved to make cheap maize meal available to the poor, in an attempt at addressing the hardships caused by the escalation in basic food prices over the past two years. It now appears from independent investigations that the bulk of the government’s efforts have been swallowed up by corruption, with very little actually reaching the poor whom the initiative was intended to assist.
144,000 bags of maize were set aside by the National Cereals and Produce Board for the scheme, but only 40,000 of those bags reached the millers who had been selected to do the milling. 100,000 bags went missing in transit. It is rumoured that some of that maize is currently fetching high prices in southern Sudan. The Sunday Nation has now reported a number of other irregularities in the allocations of maize to millers.
A number of millers appear to have made falsely exaggerated representations about their hourly milling capacity in order to attract greater allocations. One of the millers to whom an allocation was made had gone out of business some time ago. Other millers on the list are suspected of being no more than “briefcase” businesses. This rampant corruption is of great concern as the Kenyan government is currently seeking to import substantial quantities of maize to avert a famine.