Newly sworn-in Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe was on Friday, January 17, 2025, thrown into the deep end immediately after taking over the docket from his predecessor Andrew Karanja.
After subscribing to the oath of office and pledging his willingness to support Kenya Kwanza’s development agenda, President William Ruto informed CS Kagwe that his first assignment was sorting out the issue regarding the tea sector.
He added that he expected CS Kagwe to fix the issue once and for all since farmers were playing their part and the government needed to assure them of timely earnings.
“In tea, just to inform you have a first call this afternoon. We have tea that is stuck in Mombasa and yesterday I was talking to your team in the Ministry of Agriculture, you need to find out what are the issues causing the clog-up in Mombasa,” Ruto stated.
“The good news around that space is that we enhanced our earnings from tea last year from Ksh180 billion to Ksh210 billion and farmers are expecting to look at the future and do better,” he further added.
With the planting season fast approaching, Ruto directed Kagwe to take a bold and front step in ensuring that all farmers receive approved fertiliser. This was mainly due to the fake fertiliser scandal that rocked his administration which saw an impeachment motion filed against the then CS Mithika Linturi.
