Tea farmers in Githunguri, Kiambu County have raised concerns that they have been losing millions of shillings in a dubious tea swindling syndicate involving factory clerks and corrupt tea farmers.
Consequently, their pleas paid off after officials from Tea Board of Kenya (TBK) in collaboration with those from Weights and Measures ambushed tea buying centres during an impromptu inspection exercise where they confirmed the theft and manipulation of records to the disadvantage of the farmers.
Preliminary examinations on the weighing scales tested indicated that the farmers were indeed losing at least 1.4kg for every 10kgs they take to the buying centres.
During the exercise, the manipulated scales were confiscated as most clerks disappeared in the thicket after getting wind that the government officials were on the ground.
Samuel Njane, a Director TBK who led the exercise said the theft out of manipulated tea weighing scales has been reported in over 20 tea growing counties, with farmers losing millions of shillings through the syndicate.
Njane said several clerks found buying the tea using tampered weighing scales have also been arrested and their machines confiscated during their frequent raids.
He said clerks at the factories colluded with certain farmers at the buying centers to tamper with the scales and secretly transfer the stolen number of kilogrammes to them to be paid in return.
‘Farmers should be strict at the centres and ensure that before they start weighing their tea, the scales are well calibrated because this theft is demoralizing. It is well calculated to deny the farmer maximum returns of their produce,’ he said.
William Thuo Kamau, a tea farmer for over 20 years at K9 area in Githunguri, says that while they suspect the machines were tampered with, they did not have a concrete case of such theft.
‘Last year, I produced over 5,000kg of tea and from the revelations, it looks like I lost up to 800kg through such theft. This means as farmers, we have been losing millions of shillings annually through such syndicates,’ he said.
Cecilia Wairimu Chege, another tea farmer said she took close to 1,500kg last year and it seems more than 300kg was stolen from her, despite waking up during freezing morning hours to nurture and harvest the produce.
‘It’s quite discouraging that people have been stealing our hard-earned cash using such dubious means. These criminals should be arrested and prosecuted accordingly,’ she said.
Joseph Njaramba, an inspector from Weights and Measures, said they have seized the weighing machine to ascertain what caused the manipulations.
‘If the clerk is found culpable, action will be taken against him,’ he said.
Source: Kenya News Agency