Governor condemns MP over illicit brew crackdown

Nakuru Governor Kinuthia Mbugua has now distanced himself from the one week violence in Naivasha targeting alcoholic drinks traders which left property worth millions of shillings destroyed.

The Governor instead condemned the crackdown that was led by Naivasha MP John Kihagi and a group of youths in the name of eliminating illicit brews but allegedly targeted licensed traders.

The Governor, who was addressing the press in Naivasha after receiving a cheque of Ksh 10m from Lake Naivasha Growers Group (LNGG) as part of their cess, said that they had arrived at a formula where the flower farms would pay an annual fee to the county based on the number of kilograms harvested in a year.

He termed this sector as very critical noting that his government did not want to overburden it with more taxes as it was already paying 48 different fees.

The governor said that his government was engaging other flower farms to start paying cess to the county so as to improve service delivery.

The chairman LNGG Richard Fox added that 22 of the over 70 flower farms in the county had agreed to pay cess to the county government.

Fox said that the group would be collecting the cash on behalf of the county government at a premium fee and challenged non-paying farms to comply.

On his part, the chairman of finance committee in the county assembly Njuguna Gichimu noted that in the last two years they had not collected cess from the flower farms.

He added that they were working on plans to have the debts cleared in an amicable solution terming the sector as critical to the county’s economy.

He, however, expressed his concern over the high number of big firms in the county that were not paying taxes to the county government.