Ruto piles more pressure on raw nut exporters as plant opens

Deputy President William Ruto Wednesday directed the taxman and Agriculture ministry to curb raw nuts smuggling as processors said they had intercepted dozens of containers in the past year.

Head of Nut Processing Association of Kenya secretariat Charles Muigai said the association together with government agencies had seized 90 20-foot containers of raw macadamia being smuggled out of the country over the past one year.

“We are not opposed to those who want to export the nuts but let them come here and establish companies like any other,” said Mr Muigai who pointed a finger at a cartel exporting to China.

Speaking at Athi River Export Processing Zone when he officially opened a macadamia processing factory owned by Wondernut International, Mr Ruto said the country loses billions of shillings through smuggling of cashew nuts, peanuts and macadamia.

Value addition

“All arms of government must be mobilised to fight smuggling in order to safeguard the interests of our farmers, processors and the government that loses revenue,” he said.

Mr Ruto said the prices of macadamia nut had risen from Sh30 per kilogramme in 2008 to Sh135 mainly due to demand from local processors who were adding value before exporting them to Europe, America and Asia.

Production has risen from 13,000 tonnes to 27,000 tonnes in the period with processing capacity also rising to more than 40,000 tonnes annually.

Mr Ruto who banned the export of raw nuts as minister of Agriculture six years ago vowed to protect the industry at all cost.

“These men and women here (the association) came to me then and convinced me we had the capacity to process the product and this factory is a clear testimony that it is possible,” he said.

“It was not easy to ban the exports because of varied interests, but the government was convinced this was the best way to go and we should remain on course.”

He, however, challenged the processors to step up their processing beyond removing the husks into value addition including refining macadamia oil.