Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Willy Bett. He has given a stern warning to millers over 90-kg maize flour. [Photo/Daily Nation]The government will not tolerate millers who are out there to take advantage of the cheap government maize to distort market prices as the program come to a close.Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Willy Bett has said that millers who fiddle with the Sh6 billion unga subsidy programme will face heavy penalties once a nationwide audit is done.Bett has added that firms found with excess stocks of cheap maize would reimburse the government the costs incurred on the subsidy.“The ministry has asked the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) to audit all millers at the end of the scheme to ascertain grain stock at their premises. The government has reduced the maize stock to ensure millers are not left with excess quantities upon withdrawal of the subsidy scheme,” Bett told the Sunday Nation .He noted that the government has started to reduce the volume of subsidised maize offered to millers to forestall price distortions since the subsidy programme is near closure.The move, he said, was informed by the approaching short rains planting season in the North Rift, with parts of the South Rift harvesting this season’s crop.Since May, the government has been supplying millers with huge stocks of heavily subsidised maize to enable them to produce flour at the retail price of Sh90 per 2kg packet.“Starting next week, we shall limit the quantities of maize sold to millers. We don’t want to create a scenario where they will have stashed huge piles of cheap grain when the programme ends,” Bett said.The ministry forecasts a 20 per cent reduction in this year’s maize harvest, initially projected at 40 million 90kg bags. It says the harvest will be 5.1 million bags less than last year’s 37.1 million.The expected drop is attributed to the dry spell which ravaged many parts of the North Rift, resulting in the wilting of more than 40,000 acres of maize in Uasin Gishu County alone.

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