Lawmakers query AFA for operating without a board

The Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) operated without a board for five and a half years, a parliamentary committee heard on Monday.

The Public Investments Committee on Social Services and Agriculture put the AFA to task, arguing it illegally approved its budget without being sanctioned by the board.

The committee said the authority functioned without directors from November 7, 2017, when the term of the interim board members lapsed.

President William Ruto on March 23, 2023, set up the board and appointed Cornelly Serem, former Aldai MP, as the chairperson of the AFA for a five-year term.

“There was, therefore, no support to the accounting officer with regard to responsibilities for issues of risk, control and governance and associated assurance and follow up on the implementation of recommendation of internal and external auditors as envisaged under regulation 175 of the Public Finance Management Act (National Government) Regulations, 2015,” Emanuel Wangwe, who chairs the committee said.

The House team put Willis Audi, AFA director-general, on task to explain where the management got the power to approve the authority’s budget.

The committee also demanded to know how the governance and oversight at the agency had been performed without a board.

The 13-member board of directors is responsible for overseeing the regulation and promotion of agriculture and food production, as well as ensuring food safety and quality and advising the government on policies and strategies to increase agricultural productivity and competitiveness.

The AFA is a State corporation in the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Cooperatives established in 2014 by merging former regulatory institutions in the sector.

The authority oversees various scheduled crops such as coffee, tea, sugar, nuts, oil crops, fibre crops, food crops, horticultural crops, pyrethrum and miraa.

The board consists of Principal Secretaries for Agriculture, Finance and Lands and eight others representing various farmer organisations.

“You operated illegally for five and a half years. The management under the AFA Act had no authority to approve the budget. The Ministry of Agriculture should have constituted a board and not act as a board in approving your budget,” Mr Wangwe said.

Mr Audi said the management had no mandate to appoint a board after the term of the interim board lapsed in 2017.

He said the appointment of the board chairman is the prerogative of the President while the eight representatives of the farmer organisations were to be appointed by the Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture.

“There was nothing we could do other than to keep writing reminders to the CS Agriculture to appoint the board,” Mr Audi said.

“I want to admit that we may have operated illegally in the absence of the board. But we relied on the Ministry which approved all our budgets.”

He said the AFA management relied on the Ministry of Agriculture to approve its budget for the five years the board did not exist.

Andrew Osodo, the Legal Manager for AFA said in the absence of the board, it doesn’t mean the authority operated illegally.

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