Strategic Grain Reserve to be merged with NCPB – KBC

The Strategic Grain Reserve is being made a department under the National Cereals and Produce Board in a restructuring process aimed at saving taxpayers Ksh2 billion spent annually on maintaining the two organizations that perform overlapping roles.

Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya says the merger process also involves streamlining the National Cereals and Produce Board and modernizing its facilities to improve efficiency.

This follows concerns that the Strategic Grain Reserve and the National Cereals and Produce Board were performing duplicating roles.

Munya says the merging of functions will reduce bureaucracies and wastage of taxpayers cash.

He says the government plans to crack the whip on millers who were exclusively sourcing maize from outside Kenya since the deal that occasioned issuance of licenses to import the grain to plug shortages required that millers buy some of the produce locally.

Munya says the new initiatives are aimed at enhancing efficiency in the management of the national granary.