Saturday, April 17, 2021 – Deputy President William Ruto strongly denied ever being in the maize importation business when he was the Agriculture Minister.
Ruto further refuted claims he was part of faceless individuals who allegedly imported maize in 2010, thus plunging maize farmers into untold miseries.
Speaking during an interview, the DP maintained he only uses cereals as chicken feed at the poultry farm in his Sugoi farm, Uasin Gishu County.
“I have never imported even a grain of maize.”
“I grow my own maize. I do not even sell it.”
“I use it to feed my chicken.”
“I stopped selling maize to NCPB a long time ago,” he said.
In February 2010, the then former Prime Minister Raila Odinga suspended Ruto and the then Education minister Sam Ongeri over the maize scandal.
Later that evening, Ongeri said he was going nowhere and that he was clear in his mind who the appointing authority was in an apparent reference to the former president Mwai Kibaki.
In 2018, Nandi Hills MP Alfred Keter and his Cherang’ani counterpart, Joshua Kutuny, sensationally claimed Ruto was the source of the problems local maize farmers were grappling with.
The duo alleged Ruto was advising farmers to abandon maize farming and start growing avocado and other crops because he wanted to monopolize the local maize market.
Speaking at a farmers’ meeting in Eldoret, Keter alleged the DP was planning to grow over 500,000 acres of maize in Congo with the intention of importing the produce to Kenya.
E! News Blog
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