Oil Manufacturers Walk out on Moses Kuria Over Ownership and Pricing

By Mrima Changawa

Representatives of oil manufacturers in the country and Trade Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria on Friday night had a heated engagement that ended on a wrong note after the manufacturers stormed out in a unanimous protest.

It has now emerged that the meeting held in a Thika Hotel saw the manufacturers vehemently disagree with the CS who made demands in regard to shareholding in some of the companies and market price strategies.

The disagreement saw the CS take his anger to social media platforms where he accused the manufacturers.

“Until such a time when we will have a fully vertically integrated edible oils industry, the government will continue taking measures to protect consumers from powerful cartels that continue to fix high retail prices,” read part of a tweet from the CS.

The CS went on to warn the manufacturers that their days are numbered and that he is going to be their ‘waterloo’.

“To these cartels and their hirelings, in the previous ministers you found your match, in me you will find your waterloo. Don’t try me,”

The CS is said to have openly called the manufactures ‘cartels’ which prompted their walk out.

Details from the meeting further indicate that discussions on alleged importation of finished products by some of the companies did not go down well.

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The manufacturers are said to have insisted that they only import crude oil which is taxed.

Some market players confided to this writer that the heated meeting and discussion on edible oils in the country and how to ensure that oil products are sold at lower prices is largely a political issue.

A source privy to the discussion between the CS and the manufacturers revealed that some of the manufacturers have been given an ultimatum to give out company shares to powerful people in the current dispensation.

“It is not what you are hearing about retail prices but a war pitting people in the past regime and the current regime who want to control this sector,” the source revealed.

The source further revealed that the CS told the manufacturers that he has specific people in mind that can buy shares and help ‘streamline’ the sector.

“When he says that he wants to weed out cartels but makes proposals that are cartel I nature then you wonder who is the cartel,”

The manufacturers are also said to have asked the CS to help liberalize the market ,peg the VAT at 16 % and import duty at 10%.

This comes at a time when Kenya’s demand for edible oils continues on an upward trend as Kenya’s population continues to expand.

Cooking oil is one of the common commodities in almost every household which makes the industry one of the highly lucrative in Kenya with an average annual consumption of 500 million Litres annually.

The commodity has for a long time been a compliment to most meals in kitchens thereby making it almost inevitable a fact that has seen consumption of cooking oil increase by a margin of approx. 11% annually.

Kuria has been on a bad receiving end after he engaged in a vicious war with Machakos governor Wavinya Ndeti over a factory in Mlolongo.