Former Agriculture Minister Kipruto Arap Kirwa has come out saying that the current food crisis in the country is linked Ruto’s mishandling of the Agriculture docked when he headed it.
Mr. Kirwa served as Agriculture Minister after being appointed by Mwai Kibaki in 2003 up until 2008 after which William Ruto was appointed to the docket.
Kirwa says that it is during this time that the Agriculture sector in the country was messed up when Ruto colluded with cartels and ‘funny millers’ to carry out shoddy deals.
“When I left the Ministry, we had 8 million bags under NCPB. Within one month, that maize was sold recklessly to some funny millers. That is what occasioned his transfer from Ministry of Agriculture to Higher Education,” Kirwa said.
In 2009, Former Ikolomani MP Boni Khalwale, then the chairman of public accounts policy was key in seeing Ruto ousted from the Agriculture docket when the famed ‘maize scandal’ rocked it, a subject that then saw Ruto being put on the spot to clean his name.
Raila Odinga has in the past said that he fired Ruto from his cabinet over alleged involvement in the Maize scandal.
“He (Ruto) colluded with his friends, some in parliament, to sell maize to millers at higher prices. He wrote them notices which they used to buy maize from NCPB and later sold the grains to millers,’ Raila once said.
Ruto on the other hand said the investigations found him innocents and was later offered the job back in the Kibaki government but refused to rake it.
