During a meeting on Friday Cabinet Secretary, Mithika Linturi said he will identify when other maize millers will deliver their loads.
Licenses for importation will be revoked for millers who have applied for the permits but won’t have bought the commodities by then.
Linturi called for over 20 local maize millers regarding the prices of four. During the meeting, the Agriculture Cabinet Secretary said he will investigate why the prices of flour are yet to be lowered depending on their specific brands.
“I have called all of the maize millers who are beneficiaries for a meeting on Friday because whatever revenue the government is going to lose by way of import duty must be reflected in the reduction of the price of that commodity in the market,” Mithika Linturi said on Tuesday.
President William Ruto announced last week that the prices of flour will reduce from this week. This Monday, the State House spokesperson, Hussein Mohamed declared the prices of flour had been reduced in several supermarkets.
Read Also: Kenyans angered by KSh 2 maize flour reduction
Brands like Ajab and Unu were the only brands that had their prices slightly lower than Ksh 170 in most supermarkets, unlike other brands that had retained their prices at Ksh 200 to Ksh 230.
A number of millers refused to reduce the prices of flour even though there were images of a number of brands selling their products slightly below Ksh 160.
Mithika mentioned that Ajab brand was one of the beneficiaries of the Kenya Kwanza government’s decision to grant maize millers permits to import maize duty-free.
He discovered lowering of prices might be due to the brand’s consignment having started coming in. As a result, Linturi said during the meeting on Friday that he will establish when the other millers will be delivering their consignments.
“They might have problems in raising the money required to import the maize or raising certain instruments for foreign trading but I will know for certain on Friday, “Cabinet Secretary Linturi said.
Permits to import the duty-free maize have been indicated to expire in August at the time local maize farmers would reap their harvests.
“This is why I am calling the importers this Friday. I want to give them notice so that they can understand that if they are late in the delivery of commodities then it will not be good for them,” Linturi said.
“I will finally end up cancelling their permits, immediately there are signs that my farmers are harvesting the maize that we’ve been trying to support them to grow,” he added.
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