Food reserve agency says No to merger with NCPB

The Strategic Food Reserve Oversight Board (SFR) has rejected plans to merge its operations with the National Cereals and Produce Board setting stage for fresh turf wars.

SFR chairman Noah Wekesa said the agriculture Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya has no powers to scrap “an oversight body that has protected billions of funds from being misused”.

Dr Wekesa said the agency under his charge is not a creation of the Ministry of Agriculture, adding it would be inappropriate for SFR to be merged with the NCPB, “which is battling numerous cases of corruption”.

“SFR was created by the Ministry of Finance through a Cabinet resolution to oversee food security in the country,” said Dr Wekesa.

Mr Munya announced in January that SFR will be merged with NCPB to minimise conflict between the two entities and do away with overlapping roles.

Mr Munya said the move is one of the major reforms that he is planning to roll out in the ministry in the coming months to ensure efficiency in State agencies.

“There is no need of having NCPB and SFR as different entities. We want to merge the two bodies,” said Mr Munya then.

The CS repeated the same sentiments in Eldoret last week when he met with farmers’ organisations at the town’s annual Agricultural Show.

Dr Wekesa argues that the mandate of the SFR has been expanded to accommodate other foods “and it is no longer a reserve for maize alone.”

“We are now handling other food stuff such as milk, rice and we are planning to expand to green grams, so how do you merge an entity with expanded mandate with that one that handles grain?” he posed.

SFR was created as Strategic Grain Reserve in 2015, but the name was later to be changed to Strategic Food Reserve in order to accommodate other food stuff other than grain.