'You have no business telling us what to do!' DP Gachagua accuses Uhuru of meddling with Gov't

Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has accused former President Uhuru Kenyatta of meddling with the Kenya Kwanza administration.

Gachagua says the former President wasted his two terms playing dirty politics and sabotaging the farmers fertilizer subsidy program during his tenure.

“People who sabotaged farmers, undermined food security for parochial politics, have no business telling us how to work. And if they want to know how work is going, they should come here and see what’s going on,” he said.

“People are working day and night to make interventions to bring the cost of food down and they’re here trying to introduce politics of telling people how they should work. They had their own opportunity to work and they brought this country to its knees economically, let them give us time and see how we build this economy through practical interventions of increasing production in agriculture.”

The DP spoke on Friday at the Mombasa Railway Terminus when he flagged off thousands of bags of cheap fertilizer destined for the country's agricultural breadbaskets.

Gachagua said the government has hastened the distribution of the affordable farm input so that farmers could access them in time for the planting season set to start next month.

He said they expected most of the farmers in the 12 pilot counties to get the fertilizers by mid next month.

"The administration is focused on boosting agricultural productivity to ensure the cost of food comes down and ultimately we reduce the cost of living," said the DP.

The first batch of 17,840 bags carried by Kenya Railways wagons are destined for Nakuru County, while another 17,840 bags are headed to Webuye in Bungoma.

Other counties set to benefit from the subsidy programme are Narok, Uasin Gishu, Trans Nzoia, West Pokot, Migori, Kakamega, Bomet, Kericho, Elgeyo Marakwet and Nandi.

The government plans to distribute at least 6 million bags of subsidized fertilizers as it aims to significantly reduce the cost of production of staple foods such as maize and other cereals.

Farmers will buy the fertilizers at a reduced cost of Ksh.3, 500 per bag, down from the Ksh.6,000 market price.

“We ask our farmers to take advantage of this programme which aims at increasing production in their farms. The price of unga will come down. So far it has been reducing and we expect the prices to go down farther,” added the DP.