Commodities

CMA to get major role in regulating coffee exchange, says Chelugui

Chelugui

SMEs Cabinet secretary Simon Chelugui. FILE PHOTO | NMG

The Capital Markets Authority (CMA) is set to play a major role in the regulation of the Nairobi Coffee Exchange in the planned restructuring of the auction, Co-operatives Cabinet Secretary Samuel Chelugui has said.

Mr Chelugui says the coffee auction will be restructured to give the CMA a central role and also have adequate farmers’ representation on the board of management to make it all-inclusive.

Currently, the Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) management comprises mainly marketers and roasters, according to the CS.

Read: Coffee price rebounds on quality beans being offered

“If you look at the management of NCE, it is full of marketers and roasters with limited representation from farmers. There must be a policy change that will allow farmers and the government to have a seat in the NCE management,” said Mr Chelugui.

“It is because of this that we want NCE to be restructured and run by CMA where farmers and the government will be at the management board,” he added.

The coffee exchange has a board that was appointed for a one-year term and whose mandate expires in June.

The minister said the CMA is best placed to regulate spot commodities on the market as compared to other bodies.

The move comes as a major boost to the CMA, which until last year, was fighting to have control of the auction in a supremacy battle that pitted the capital markets regulator and the Ministry of Agriculture.

Parliament recently nullified coffee regulations published by former Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya, saying the ministry failed to adequately conduct public participation and ignored the views of some stakeholders.

The National Assembly Delegated Legislation Committee, in a report adopted by the House, annulled in its entirety the Crops (Coffee) (General) (Amendment) Regulations, 2022 that was pushed by Mr Munya.

The regulations published in June last year proposed amendments to various provisions of the principal regulations to provide for licences, obligations of licence holders and service providers, recognition and protection of coffee growers’ rights, and collection and maintenance of data related to coffee to raise standards.

Read: Coffee trade risks disruption in July as new rules start

The regulations had sealed the fate of CMA by placing the functions of managing NCE and licensing coffee brokers to the Agriculture and Food Authority.

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