BY FELIX OLICK
OPPOSITION leader Raila Odinga yesterday launched a blistering attack on Deputy President William Ruto, accusing him of dishonesty.
Raila said the DP knew the illicit sugar barons and what went wrong with the sugar industry because he was the minister for Agriculture in the last coalition government.
"Ruto is better placed to tell the country how the sugar industry collapsed, since he was responsible for issuing sugar importation licenses. He knows whom he gave them to.
"This nonsense of blaming the former government for the suspect deals Jubilee is cutting now amounts to dishonesty and must stop," Raila told the Star.
Ruto has been on a three-day political charm offensive in Western Kenya, where he defended the Uganda sugar deal and blamed the former government for the collapse of the industry as he supported the decision to allow Uganda to export sugar to Kenya.
Raila challenged Ruto to name the people in the former government he has been accusing of protecting the sugar barons.
"He is in government now and should order the arrest and prosecution of the people he has evidence against, otherwise he should stop fooling Kenyans," he added.
Felix Koskei, Raila said, was on suspension from the Cabinet as Agriculture Secretary for, among other things, issuance of sugar licenses. Koskei comes from Nandi and was nominated to the Cabinet by Ruto.
The opposition chiefs, led by Raila, are all set to storm Western Kenya to explain why the Uganda sugar deal is bad for this country.
Bungoma Senator Moses Wetang’ula, whose home county is at the heart of the sugar belt, launched a withering attack on President Uhuru Kenyatta, rubbishing the deal as a ploy to secure a market for Brookside Limited, a dairy corporation majority owned by the Kenyatta family.
“The agenda is very clear; secure a safe market for Brookside; a Kenyatta family dairy consortium, regardless of how much it harms the ordinary poor sugar farmer in the Western sugar belt,” Wetang’ula stated.??
“That is why the government is willing to consider bailing out Kenya Airways, which has a whopping Sh29 billion debt, but not to release Sh5 billion to Mumias. For Kenya Airways it’s a bailout, for Mumias it’s a loan repayable with interest.”
The President has been dangling the carrot - including a Cabinet appointment and a number of plum parastatal jobs – to woo Western, a region that overwhelmingly voted for Raila, his 2013 presidential rival.
Head of the Cord secretariat Norman Magaya said that the rallies are set for next weekend because of the ongoing ODM retreat at the Maanzoni Lodge that ends today.? ?“We have to explain to residents why the sugar deal is sour,” Magaya told the Star.
The rallies will be held in Bungoma, Homa Bay, Kakamega, Busia, Kisumu, Migori, Narok and Kwale.
Yesterday, Ruto concluded a three-day political fire-fighting mission in Western, where he tactically downplayed the impact of the sugar deal, instead turning the blame on the Cord team.?? “Those who are screaming loudest are responsible for the collapse of the sugar industry and are hiding behind the name of poor farmers who are suffering,” Ruto claimed.
Jubilee is determined to expand its territory to give it a convincing lead in 2017. ??However, the Cord brigade is clutching to the deal, which appears to be a public relations disaster for the ruling coalition, to gain some political mileage.
Sources told the Star that the trade agreement would make it to the ODM agenda in Maanzoni, with possible strategy discussions on how to use it to turn the tables on Jubilee.
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