Court puts GMO maize import plan on freeze

Court puts GMO maize import plan on freeze

Mithika-Linturi-III

Court puts GMO maize import plan on freeze

A High Court judge has ruled in favour of a petition filed by the Kenyan Peasants League seeking to stop a directive issued by Trade Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria opening a six-month window for the duty-free importation of GMO maize into Kenya.

The peasants' lobby petitioned the Judiciary to quash the importation order arguing that the move was unprocedural and unlawful, a plea that High Court’s Justice Mugure Thande granted.

Earlier in the month, Mr Kuria announced that the government would facilitate the entry of GMO maize into the country with tax breaks to improve the wanting food security situation as Kenya grapples with the severest drought in four decades.

“There is no harm in adding GMO to the list of the very many things that can kill you in this country. That is why we have deliberately decided to allow GMOs into this country until we are satisfied that we have enough maize, the staple food.

“I’m signing a gazette notice to allow for the importation of GMO maize duty-free until we achieve food security because that is our cardinal responsibility as government,” said Mr Kuria.

The National Disaster Management Authority has warned a total of 4.5 million Kenyans in arid and semi-arid areas are at high risk of hunger and starvation due to poor rainfall which has blighted the largely rain-fed farming in the country.

The insufficient rainfall retarding Kenyan agriculture has led to a maize supply shortfall across the country, triggering a steep appreciation in the price of staple maize flour which has breached the Kes200 mark, up from Kes 130 at the start of the year, for a 2Kg packet.

Pricey food commodities such as unga are among the primary inflation drivers in the economy which peak at 9.6 percent in October, a 0.4 percent month-on-month increase from 9.2 percent in September.

Read also: Kenya to open six-month window for GM maize imports

Mr Kuria’s announcement has drawn criticism from various quarters even as MPs from the maize growing regions term the decision economic sabotage of their constituents.

The announcement also appears to have rubbed Mr Kuria’s Cabinet colleagues the wrong way with his Agriculture counterpart Mithika Linturi asserting that issues to do with food importation is a preserve of his docket.

“I’m the custodian of statistics on how much food we need in this country and what we consume everyday,” Mr Linturi said.

Musalia Mudavadi, the Prime Cabinet Secretary echoed Mr Linturi’s position saying, “the issue of importation of maize should be guided by a survey of Ministry of Agriculture to find out if there is a deficit of grains in the country. It is the agriculture docket that will issue an importation order looking at the food security situation in the country.”

newsroom@maudhui.co.ke

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