According to news reports, Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has reiterated his commitment to weed out cartels who he said have ‘captured’ KTDA.
Gachagua who spoke Monday when he met directors from the agency said the government will not relent in its push to streamline the sector.
This, he noted, is in a bid to make it more profitable for farmers.
“We are concerned about the capture of the sector by various forces which are working to the disadvantage of the farmers. We want to free the sector from these forces,” said the DP.
“We have no personal interest in the sector other than the interest of the local farmers.
“The situation we have now is not pleasant. It is a vicious cycle of poor returns for our tea farmers. The tea farms make beautiful scenery across the country but the owners remain poor.”
Here we see typical Rigathi Gachagua up with his hubris warning the so-called cartels in the tea industry that their days are numbered as he is going to destroy all of them. What the DP forgot to tell Kenyans is what exactly are these cartels that the Ruto government keeps blaming when everything is going wrong and their government is sleeping on the job.
When the prices of basic goods are stubbornly high, despite all promises to bring down prices they cry about cartels keeping the prices up.
When fuel prices go through the roof it is the cartels doing that according to the Ruto government. When they went to Galana Kulalu stalled project making outrageous promises which will never be fulfilled, it was them fighting cartels.
Who are these cartels and why can’t they be publicly named so all Kenyans can fight them instead of secret or even non-existing wars with government officials? Are the cartels more powerful than the Ruto government which can’t dare name them?
Do these cartels really exist or this is the new bogeyman of state capture that Ruto wants to pretend to be fighting and blaming for the next five years when things are falling off the wheels? Can DP Gachagua after that meeting with the team working on the tea industry cartels tell Kenyans exactly who and what those cartels are and how they are taking farmers’ earnings from tea?
Do the cartels have people to harvest other peoples’ tea and sell it to the buyers? Do they work with the KTDA to defraud tea farmers? How exactly has the cartels “captured” the KTDA which is a government agency run and paid for by the Kenya government?
Are there people within KTDA (the capturers) working to grab farmers’ money? If so, they are criminals who should be arrested and charged in our courts. How does a government agency like KTDA get captured by criminals and the government just sits and talks every day without taking any action against the capturers committing crimes against Kenyans?
DP Gachagua should know a thing or two about cartels that steal money from Kenyans. In his case where he is now being rescued by their government, the DP was accused by the DCI of having tons of bogus companies grabbing money from the Mathira constituency and from the national government.
Together with his wife Pastor Dorcas Gachuagua, DP Rigathi Gachagua were found to own more than 40 companies in a chain of transactions made by through bank accounts, and their proxies totaling to Shs. 12B.
Information from the DCI reveals 40 companies including Wamunyoro Investments Limited which has listed MP Rigathi Gachagua and Pastor Dorcas Wanjiku as the only shareholders.
”DCI also talked of Accounts held at Rafiki Deposit-taking Microfinance have been used to source for loans (and) these loans have been used to cover up for funds received from government departments or intercompany transfers in a bid to conceal the ultimate beneficiary or beneficiaries of the funds,” a section of the report reads.
There is Crystal Kenya Limited a company associated with the Gachaguas. Upperdeck Agencies, another proxy of the former MP won a Sh9.4 million tender to supply linen to Nyeri County hospitals. Its proprietors listed in bank records are Gerald Waema Mbatha.
If you look at the network of criminal institutions run by DP Gachagua stealing public money left, right, and center you get to see how cartels are built and how they work. So Gachagua has actually run real cartels and he knows how they work.
All Kenyans know is that DP Gachagua has now been declared a saint and all the money he stole including the Shs. 200 million which was already withheld by the government have been given back to him with apologies from the president for the wrongful accusations of theft (state capture).
Maybe President Ruto and his DP are paying too much attention to Bob Marley with his song:
” It takes Thief To Catch A Thief “
So when Gachagua steals money and is investigated and arrested by DCI that is “state capture” in the Rutospeak. Then Gachagua is now freed to fight another “state capture” of KTDA to steal tea farmers’ income. Can Ruto and Gachagua send their new DCI to investigate the theft of tea farmers’ money or that will be another “state capture” of the DCI instead of “capture” of KTDA by thieves?
This “state capture” dance going around in circles is getting boring and tedious. If you don’t know what you are doing then leave Kenyans on their own and go to church everybody but be careful you don’t end up with your own “state capture” of the church if that has not happened already.
If Ruto wants to solve real problems that Kenyans are dealing with then be honest with Kenyans starting with what exactly is happening in the tea industry. Give us the names of the cartels there, to begin with, and tell Kenyans what exactly those cartels are doing. Ruto also talked about cartels that took land in Galana Kulalu’s 1.7 million acre project. Those are thieves, name them now, or just shut up if you have no clue about what you are talking about.
