This archive report was first published on 15 June 2020.
June 15, 2020
Small-scale tea farmers in Kenya are demanding answers from the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) over a Sh649 million dividend payment.
The Kenya Smallholder Tea Growers Association (Kestega) claims that farmers were not consulted before the establishment of KTDA subsidiaries, which generated the dividend.
KTDA announced the dividend payment last month, citing profits of Sh2.8 billion for the year ending June 2019.
However, farmers are questioning the calculation of the dividend and the value of shares in the subsidiaries.
‘Farmers were not even consulted before the companies were established yet they claim we are shareholders. How many shares does each of the 68 factories own in the nine subsidiaries and what is their value? We don’t know,’ said John Nteere, Kestega national chairman.
Tea farmers in North Imenti, such as Clifford Gikunda, are also demanding transparency on how their dividend payments were calculated.
‘We need to be told how the figures were arrived at because each farmer was paid according to the number of kilos they harvested over the past one year, which is not the value of shares. There is something they are not telling us,’ said Mr Gikunda.
KTDA Zone Seven chairman, Paul Ringera, however, claims that farmers have been receiving bonuses over the years, but they were not reflected in their pay slips.
‘At the end of each financial year each factory holds their own annual general meeting (AGM) when these dividends are declared but some farmers don’t even attend the AGMs,’ said Mr Ringera.
