Potato farmers, traders, and transporters have petitioned former Prime Minister Raila Odinga to intervene and have the controversial Irish Potato regulations suspended.
Ahead of his visit to the agriculture-rich county on Saturday, the farmers noted that they were incurring huge losses due to the laws that had ended up oppressing them.
This emerged during a stakeholder meeting between the farmers and the ODM secretariat ahead of Raila’s visit. The farmers and traders have already gone to court arguing that the regulations came into law without their involvement according to www.kbc.co.ke
According to the stakeholder’s spokesperson George Kimani, the penalties imposed by the law were punitive, unreasonable, and not commensurate with potato farming and loading.
Kimani who is an advocate of the High Court noted that they were hopeful that Raila would intervene and have the laws suspended.
He said that they had prepared a petition which underlined the effects of the laws that were originally meant to protect the farmers.
“We hope that the former PM will engage the President and the CS for Agriculture so that this law can be shelved for now,” he said.
Kimani at the same time added that tens of contractors in the county had not been paid despite offering several services to the county, a move that had rendered many of them bankrupt.
