Shocking revelations expose how tea factory bosses feast on allowances while 680,000 small-scale growers sink deeper into poverty
A brewing scandal has erupted in Kenya’s tea sector, exposing how directors at the Kenya Tea Development Agency have turned farmers’ lifeline into their personal ATM, pocketing millions in sitting allowances while paying growers peanuts for their backbreaking labour.
Government audits have laid bare a sickening reality: some KTDA directors are holding between 110 and 165 meetings annually, earning an average of Sh50,000 per sitting from their respective factories. This translates to a staggering Sh5.5 million to Sh8.25 million per director every year, all extracted from the sweat and toil of struggling tea farmers.
Principal Secretary for Agriculture Paul Ronoh has finally pulled back the curtain on this grand theatre of greed, threatening to send the current crop of directors packing unless they immediately raise tea prices by Sh30 per kilogram. His scathing assessment paints a damning picture of an agency hijacked by self-serving individuals who have mastered the art of enriching themselves while farmers languish in poverty.
“KTDA was well-structured, but it has been infiltrated by crooks that have raised operation costs in factories that negatively affect earnings by farmers,” Dr Ronoh declared during a heated confrontation with directors in Kericho County.
But the rot runs deeper than excessive meetings. The PS revealed that nepotism has become the order of the day, with directors employing their relatives and friends in a systematic scheme that has bloated the payroll beyond recognition. Every election cycle brings a fresh wave of creative employment strategies as new directors rush to secure positions for their kinfolk.
The consequences for farmers have been devastating. While directors grow fat on allowances and their relatives enjoy cushy jobs courtesy of their connections, the 680,000 small-scale growers who supply tea to KTDA-managed factories have watched their bonus payments shrink to insulting levels.
The timing could not be worse. Farmers are reeling from the double blow of reduced bonuses and stagnant tea leaf prices while operation costs at the factories continue to climb, driven by what Dr Ronoh describes as a bloated and corrupt management structure.
At Chai Trading, a KTDA subsidiary, 18 officers were recently sacked for engaging in fraudulent activities that further disadvantaged already struggling farmers. The PS has vowed that similar purges will sweep through other KTDA-owned companies, suggesting the cancer of corruption has metastasized throughout the organization.
KTDA directors, led by zone five chairman John Mithamo Wa Susana and zone eight’s Philip Langat, have dismissed the accusations as political theatre. They insist the government is making them scapegoats for policy failures, particularly the removal of reserve market prices at the Mombasa Tea Auction in August 2024.
“The reserve price had been set by policies under the Tea Act 2020 as 2.4 dollars per kilogram. It plummeted to 1.4 dollars per kilogram, making it difficult for factories to break even,” a director who spoke on condition of anonymity revealed, pointing an accusing finger back at the Ministry of Agriculture for implementing the change without consulting stakeholders.
KTDA chairman Chege Kirundi has attempted to explain away the poor bonus payments by citing exchange rate fluctuations. The Kenyan shilling’s strengthening from an average of Sh144 to the dollar in 2024 to Sh129 in 2025 meant lower returns when international prices remained stable, he argued.
But farmers are not buying these excuses. They see directors living large, holding endless meetings that serve no purpose other than generating allowances, while they receive pittances for their produce. The mathematical reality is stark: if a director attends 165 meetings at Sh50,000 per sitting, they pocket Sh8.25 million annually. A typical small-scale tea farmer, meanwhile, struggles to earn even a fraction of that amount from a whole year’s harvest.
The confrontation in Kericho has exposed the deep divisions within Kenya’s tea sector. On one side stand government officials demanding accountability and threatening wholesale changes. On the other, entrenched directors crying foul and deflecting blame onto exchange rates, market instability and policy failures.
What gets lost in this war of words is the plight of the farmer. The small-scale grower who wakes before dawn to pluck tea leaves, who depends on bonus payments to educate children and put food on the table, who has watched helplessly as the value of their labour continues to diminish while those supposed to represent their interests grow increasingly prosperous.
Dr Ronoh has drawn a line in the sand. He has declared there will be no more consultative meetings with farmers because the problems have been identified. The government, he insists, will take them head-on. Directors must raise tea prices immediately or face removal.
“If we have to send the current directors packing, then we will do that. We will return to the farmers and ensure that is done,” the PS warned.
The directors have responded by accusing government officials of making populist statements and playing politics with serious issues, but their credibility has taken a severe battering. How do you explain 165 meetings in a year? How do you justify employing relatives while farmers earn barely enough to survive? How do you defend a system where allowances for directors outstrip bonuses for the very people who produce the tea?
As the standoff intensifies, Kenya’s 680,000 small-scale tea growers wait anxiously. They have heard promises before. They have watched reforms announced and quietly abandoned. They have seen directors come and go while their situation remains largely unchanged.
This time, they are hoping for more than rhetoric. They are demanding action. They want an end to the gravy train that has turned KTDA into a vehicle for personal enrichment rather than farmer empowerment. They want directors who see their role as service, not an opportunity to milk the system dry.
The battle lines have been drawn. The government has issued its ultimatum. The directors are circling their wagons. And in the middle, as always, stand the farmers, hoping that this time, someone will actually fight for them rather than fight over them.
