19 April 2023

• Linturi said, in the Friday meeting, he will establish when the other millers will be bringing their consignments.

• Millers who have applied for the permits but won't have bought the commodities by then, risk having their import licenses revoked.

Agriculture CS Mithika Linturi has summoned over 20 local maize millers over the price of unga.

In the meeting which will be on Friday, the CS said he will be seeking to know why they are yet to lower the prices of unga depending on their brands.

"I have called all of the maize millers who are beneficiaries for a meeting on Friday because whatever revenue the government is going to lose by way of import duty must be reflected in the reduction of the price of that commodity in the market," Linturi said on Tuesday night.

Last week, President William Ruto publicly announced that from this week, the cost of unga will go down.

On Monday, State House Spokesperson Hussein Mohamed announced unga prices at various supermarkets have dropped.

However, in most supermarkets, only Ajab and Umi brands had their prices slightly lower below sh170.

The rest still remained between Sh200 to Sh230.

A section of millers denied reducing prices for unga even as images of some brands selling their products slightly below Sh160 emerge on social media.

CS Linturi disclosed that Ajab brand was one of the beneficiaries of the Kenya Kwanza government's decision to grant maize millers permits to import maize duty-free.

He noted that it might be the brand’s consignment that has started coming in, resulting in why it has lowered the price.

As a result, Linturi said in the Friday meeting, he will establish when the other millers will be bringing their consignments.

“They might have problems in raising the money required to import the maize or raising certain instruments for foreign trading but I will know for certain on Friday,” he explained.

The permits to import the duty-free maize are set to expire in August, just about when local maize farmers reap their harvests.

In relation to that, CS Linturi said that millers who have applied for the permits but won't have bought the commodities by then, risk having their import licenses revoked.

"This is why I am calling the importers this Friday. I want to give them notice so that they can understand that if they are late in the delivery of commodities then it will not be good for them," he said

"I will finally end up cancelling their permits, immediately there are signs that my farmers are harvesting the maize that we've been trying to support them to grow,” Linturi added.