We are apologising to the farmers- KTDA to refund ksh. 1B to 600,000 individuals.
Kenya tea and development company Chairman, David Ichoho, has admitted to a blunder that they committed making more than half a million farmers, suffer.
He stated that the authority was supposed to deduct Ksh5 but ended up deducting Ksh500 from every farmer.
Ichoho stated,”In the month of March, I think there was a hitch in our system and instead of deducting Ksh5, they deducted the whole amount. We are apologising to the farmers and we have already begun the process of returning the funds.”
Apparently, the above deductions were payment for the subsidized fertilizer thatvhad earlier been given to the farmers at the price of ksh3,000 allowing them to pay Ksh500 at a later date.
He stated, “We had earlier deducted Ksh3,000 from the farmers for every bag of fertiliser but there was a deficit of Ksh500 for every bag.
The chairman however, highlighted that the tea company had not yet established if the error was made by their technology or a by a staff.
As of now, Forensic auditors stated that they were doing a scrutiny on the company’s financial systems to shed light on how the amount was deducted from its new accounting platform.
A notice was also given to the farmers, which read,”KTDA recovered from the farmers an advanced Ksh3,000 per bag at the time of payment of bonus in July 2022, and owed farmers a balance of Ksh500.”
“The farmers agreed that the recovery and reimbursement or recovery would be done later upon confirmation of the actual cost of fertilizer and the actual number of bags taken by respective farmers,” read part of the notice.
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