it is now evident that Jubilee govt is getting overwhelmed by corruption…[ATTACH=full]192916[/ATTACH] https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/economy/Multi-billion-Galana-churns-out-Sh35m-maize-in-a-year/3946234-4756804-wry5yvz/index.html ECONOMY
[SIZE=7]Multi-billion Galana churns out Sh35m maize in a year[/SIZE]
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2018 21:24https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/image/view/-/4756834/medRes/2108038/-/maxw/960/-/ty3cp2/-/boga.jpgAgriculture PS Hamadi Boga (Left) with Administrative Secretary Kello Harsama before Senate committee on September 12. PHOTO | DIANA NGILA | NMG
The government produced a paltry 22,000 bags of maize currently worth Sh35.2 million from Galana-Kulalu irrigation scheme despite spending Sh7.3 billion in the Israeli-backed food security project, Parliament heard on Wednesday.
The National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) told the Senate that it is holding 40,000 fifty- kilogramme (kg) bags of maize received from the Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC).
The bags of maize translate to 22,000, 90kg bags that were harvested in the financial year 2017, currently worth Sh35.2 million at current market price of Sh1,600 per bag.
Galana-Kulalu irrigation scheme.
The Sh7.3 billion project covers about one million acres of land and targets crop production on 10,000 acres in Kilifi and Tana River counties.
On August 2014, the National Irrigation Board (NIB) signed a Sh14.5 billion contract with Israeli firm Green Arava Ltd to pilot a project in the Galana-Kulalu scheme.
As at March this year, only 5,000 acres, out of the targeted one million acres, had been put under crop.
The NIB early this year cancelled an invitation of bids from investors who could start production on the 10,000 acres whose infrastructure has been building since 2015.
“As NCPB, we are holding about 22,000 of 90kg bags of maize that was harvested from Galana in the last crop season.
“We are yet to pay them (ADC). We have agreed that we will delay payment to ADC and pay the smallscale farmers first because it’s a government entity,” Mr Alvin Sang, the acting NCPB managing director told the Senate ad-hoc committee that is investigating why farmers who delivered maize to the NCPB have not been paid.
The team is also probing the quantity of duty-free maize imported into the country during the duty-free window that was to end in October but was extended to December 2017.
A total of 10.5 million bags of 90kg each were imported in a period that saw the government spend Sh11.5 billion to purchase 3.6 million bags of 90 kgs.
Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei sought to know the amount of maize that the NCPB had received from Galana.
“We want to know the amount of maize that was harvested from the multibillion-shilling project in Galana-Kulalu. Can you provide us with the figures of bags harvested?” Mr Cherargei asked crops principal secretary Hamida Boya.
This 22,000bags of maize is equivalent to the production of a single farmer in Kitale… @20bags per acre for 1,000acres… but produced on 5,000acres. Very poor performance.
If these project is is successful the price of ugly will probably come down and the importers of maize will have to get themselves real work like the rest of Kenyans.
These kind of projects requires an able Team, run by Professionals not civil servants. Separate from cereal boards, managed by a government investment portfolio body, remains only as a subsidiary of the ministry of Agriculture (Advisory role). The CEO and Directors reporting to the investment body who have an oversight over the project, not the ministry of agriculture.
Quarterly auditing and project reviews to contain corruption and avert project failure
Sijaisoma yote but I remember the whole story while kina @Mediocre were here trying to justify the nonsense that is this project. According to them we are waiting for “Israeli experts”
You think Ruto can allow Galana to succeed???
In late 2008, it was established that the Bura Irrigation Scheme ,ones revived and put under maize cultivation, would have the capability to not only feed the country, but feed the country with sh52 per 2kg Maize flour. Galana was modelled on this
However, the plan also made it clear that 10 million farmers in Wester, North Rift and Nyanza would have no market for their produce as small scale farmers have extremely high production costs.
Remember it is them who keep the cost of Maize flour high.They demand not less than sh 3000 per 90 kg bag(and that is the lowest price quoted.It is usually around 3500) and they cry foul when cheaper maize(from nations where schemes like Galana are the Norm like South Africa,Zambia and the US) is imported.
Ruto has ,in private, sabotaged Galana from the very begining.The report itself shows the sabotage.
We are yet to pay them (ADC). We have agreed that we will delay payment to ADC and pay the smallscale farmers first because it’s a government entity,” Mr Alvin Sang, the acting NCPB managing director told the Senate ad-hoc committee that is investigating why farmers who delivered maize to the NCPB have not been paid.
So they agreed to pay the small scale farmers first, the ones who demand not less than sh 3000 per 90 kg bag, but not the ADC maize which btw, is sold for around sh 800 per 90kg bag!!
The support for high cost, small scale farming is the bane of all large scale irrigation schemes be it Bura,Hola,Galana, the proposed Upper Tana Scheme and the Grand Falls Scheme.
Because those schemes can produce so cheaply with so few people, they are a threat to the millions of high cost small scale farmers in the country.
Since Machines do not vote, the politicians, especially from the Rift will never, ever allow large scale farming that is a threat to their Maize to ever succeed.
Dude, before making assumptions, ask around!!
@GERALD9949 How is Ruto protecting his people and yet he himself is an oligarch shipping in cheap maize from abroad to beat local maize?
And even if Ruto were to sabotage galana his people still can’t feed the nation as things stand presently. And they are not paid on time either. And fertilizer and other inputs are still too expensive.
And these irrigation schemes you speak of are not new!
Hizi vitu tulikuwa tunazisoma hata tukiwa shule and they still failed under gathecha’s father and even under Moi. The perkerra, bura, galana, Hola etc those are not new names. Hizo jina tulicram shule and they all collapsed years ago with billions of shillings in funding. So what’s new this time round?
And don’t forget even in the U.S. the large farms are still family owned not state owned. They started in the 1800s with a few hundred acres and then grew through the years.
According to wikipedia Bura irrigation scheme was started in 1977. Under the new president, President Daniel Moi millions of dollars were pumped into the project, farmers were assigned their plots but by 1990 the whole thing was a complete failure.
So what are you proposing that can be done differently… that hasn’t been done before?
Ruto was a small boy in the 70s still jerking off so he didn’t sabotage Bura.
Peleka ujinga mbali.
Ruto, the owner of 680, Boulevard, Taj Mall, Southend Mall, Mediamax and uncountable other properties, has sabotaged Galana.
This village talk where Ruto is given all the credit and blame is really exhausting. In any case it only paints him as all-powerful and unstoppable, never mind that 90% of it is bullshit.
Starting a 1-million acre irrigation scheme is no small task.
People just think all is required is actually planting. They forget you need water. Lot’s of it.
It will cost hundreds of billions to build the dams required, and much more to lay the irrigation infrastructure, harvesting machinery, storage etc.
Galana may have flopped so far, but let’s stop assuming that the government had some Sh500 billion lying around ready to be deployed.
That 7 billion supposedly spent can only cover like 1% of the entire project.