More information is becoming available, indicating that between 2022 and 2024, the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) may have distributed 100,000 bags of allegedly counterfeit fertilizer from SBL Innovative Manufacturers Limited.
On Tuesday before the National Assembly's Agriculture Committee, the company's director, Josiah Kariuki, stated that he had a contract with NCPB to sell his product and that samples were taken for testing before the agreement was signed.
MPs attacked Kariuki for allegedly selling diatomite under the guise of fertilizer. Kariuki refuted the allegations, claiming that the products he supplied to the market had undergone testing and certification by the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS).
"There is no single bag or any farmer who has complained or shown on TV...GPC is a soil...we know and we have seen many times the people who are selling soil so those people should compensate the farmers, those who are selling the soil," said Kariuki.
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Committee members quickly drew attention to the fact that KEBS provided a report indicating that the product Kariuki distributed from March 2022 to March 2024 differed from the one it had certified as authentic.
"The product you took to KEBS is not the product you are circulating, that is the point. Whatever the farmers are using is probably what you gave to KEBS that time and it could have assisted them but what you are selling now is a fake product; it is rock," Committee Chairperson John Mutunga said.
"In 2022 it was a soil conditioner...In 2023 it has turned to an organic fertilizer and in fact what you are selling now is organic fertiliser...GPC original plus whatever it is," Soy MP David Kiplagat said.
Additionally, Kariuki disclosed to the committee that NCPB distributed more bags than the 70,000 they had disclosed on Monday.
"NCPB have done about 100,000 bags, I used to give extra bags, I have given extra bags more than 20,000 bags when I was doing demos...so any farmer used to go and buy anything from cereals board you used to get an extra bag for free," he stated.
The contract that Kariuki had utilized to get the deal with NCPB, which was between SBL Innovate and African Diatomite Limited, was another issue raised by the MPs.
"You started selling this product about 8 months before you got a contract with African Diatomite, you have said here you landed the product after you had already had a contract, so are you here to waste our time?" Mutunga posed.
"I am not lying to you...what I say is that the contract was not signed by that time...but we were still selling with them," Kariuki responded.
In the meantime, DCI detectives spent the entire Tuesday at the NCPB gathering information that will be useful in the matter's investigations. Top board officials were questioned about the issue on Monday.
