The famous maize scandal of 2017 seem not to be dying anytime soon. The investigations racket has now caught up with Interior CS Fred Matiang’i and Head of Public Service Joseph Kinyua.
This comes as the Senate pushes for the probe of Matiang’i and Kinyua as it believes the duo have something to do with the excessive importation of Maize in 2017.
Last week saw Senate amend an ad hoc committee report to add the names of HPS Kinyua, CS Matiang’i, and former Devolution CS Mwangi Kiunjuri.
Initially, the committee had blamed Treasury’s Henry Rotich and former Agriculture CS Willy Bett.
The matter under investigation is the importation of duty free maize that flooded the local market in 2017.
The decision to import the maize was made by the inter-ministerial committee on food security and both CS Matiang’i and HPS Joseph Kinyua were part of it.
Uasin Gishu Senator Margaret Kamar said:
“We amended the report to cast the culpability net wider to include all members of the committee that were responsible for the importation.The reason why we are bringing the amendments is that we have revived minutes of what transpired both for the gazette notices and most of the sweeping recommendations that the committee made.”
Kamar argues that all members of the food security committee approved the decision to import the maize from Mexico and should therefore be held responsible.
The cargo of about four million 90kg maize bags from Mexico caused heated discussion on who really owned them.