Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe now says the government will release the strategic maize reserves they have to ensure flour prices don’t go up.
Speaking to the press on Monday, May 5, CS Kagwe told Kenyans not to panic about the prices of maize flour.
“There should be no panic about the price of unga going up. It is not going to go up, we are going to ensure it doesn’t go up by releasing the strategic maize reserves that we have,” said CS Kagwe.
CS Kagwe says maize flour price will not increase. Photo: Courtesy.
Notably, CS Kagwe had previously announced that the government would allow the importation of 5.5 million bags of yellow maize for a year with a 50% duty waiver for importers.
The Agriculture CS noted that the move would reduce the pressure on white maize, which is currently being used by humans and animals as feed.
“The government will gazette a 50% duty waiver for the importation of 5.5 million bags of yellow maize over a one-year period. This initiative will be carried out by a vetted list of qualified animal feed millers with sufficient capacity. The objective is to reduce pressure on local white maize stocks by shifting animal feed millers to yellow maize,” said Kagwe.
However, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) in a report on April 30, revealed that the price of 2kgs of fortified maize flour had gone up by 2.6 percent over the last one month.
