Kenyans on Twitter (KoT) went online Thursday morning calling out the rot in the coffee sector.
Kenya which grows mostly Arabica type of coffee has seen cartels take over the industry rendering farmers poor and moneyless.
Cases of theft has been the norm in the coffee farms where a farmer whose crops are due for harvest often find themselves at the mercy of ruthless gangs who steal and sell the work of their hard labour for cheap.
The reforms initiated by the govt in the industry has failed to bore any good fruits as lawyers and politicians and some businessmen collude to bribe judges in favour of cartels.
Controversial blogger Cyprian Nyakundi yesterday exposed an Sh15 million corruption kitty said to be the money carried by Wanyama advocates to bribe judges on behalf of unscrupulous coffee dealers in order to delay or scuttle reforms.
“Correspondence in our possession is as clear a smoking gun as it gets — the coffee marketers have put together a kitty of Kshs 15 million intended to bribe judges currently handling a case where a coffee society, a known proxy of the coffee cartels, has filed a case to challenge the new coffee licensing laws under the pretext that they were enacted ‘without public participation’”, Nyakundi wrote on Wednesday
Another sector, Tea has been mainstreamed and made better after President Uhuru Kenyatta appointed a committee to look into the grievances of farmers.
Many at the Kenya Tea Development Authority were sent packing and the sector is regaining lost glory.
The deaths caused by theft and machete-wielding gangs in the coffee industry is a sorry sight and as such KoT called on Starbucks, Kraft Heinz Foods and Nestle to ban coffee from Keya until sanity is restored.
The hashtag to check is #ResistCoffeeCartels.
Note that the Coffee Cartels have figured out a way to scuffle the coffee reforms that were brought about by the president which has resulted to farmers suffering #ResistCoffeeCartels pic.twitter.com/AEigrGianN
— Sareton Solitei (@SaretonSolitei) February 3, 2022
For how long can Starbucks, Nestle, Kraft Foods and many other coffee roasters continue pretending that they are unaware that their coffee brokers in Kenya are part of an entrenched cartel that maintains its market presence through corruption? #ResistCoffeeCartels pic.twitter.com/B0pqRe3mJ4
— Edward Genesis™ (@EKmwanzo) February 3, 2022
Kenya’s coffee is like GOLD, at harvest time, a farmer has to hire police guard and escort for the produce to the market because of the high incidences of theft. @KraftHeinzCo, @Starbucks, @Nestle @StateHouseKenya. #ResistCoffeeCartels
— Kenyanshibe (@Lagaless) February 3, 2022
