You Cannot Lecture Us on What to Do, Gachagua Tells Former President Uhuru

Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has told off former President Uhuru Kenyatta, accusing him of meddling with the Kenya Kwanza administration.

Gachagua said Kenyatta lacks the moral authority to lecture the Kenya Kwanza administration on what to do, saying the former president wasted his two terms playing what he termed as dirty politics and sabotaging the fertilizer subsidy program.

“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,” Gachagua said.

He added: “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 deputy president spoke on Friday at the Mombasa Railway Terminus when he flagged off thousands of bags of subsidized fertilizer to various counties.

He noted that the government has fast-tracked the distribution of affordable farm input to farmers ahead of the planting season set to start 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," he added.

The first consignment of 17,840 bags of cheap fertilizer is destined for Nakuru County, while another 17,840 bags are headed to Webuye in Bungoma.

Other counties that will benefit from the subsidized fertilizer program in the pilot phase include 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 fertilizer at a reduced cost of Sh3, 500 per bag, down from the Sh6,000 market price.

“We ask our farmers to take advantage of this program 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,” Gachagua remarked.