Deputy President on Sunday evening said that he believes his late brother and the then Nyeri Governor Nderitu Gachagua was poisoned by individuals he termed as powerful cartels in the coffee sub-sector.
According to Gachagua, his brother was healthy until he suddenly felt sick and died on February 24, 2017.
Nderitu passed on at Royal Marsden Hospital in London where he had been undergoing treatment for pancreatic cancer.
“Our family believes and we know the late Nderitu Gachagua was poisoned by those people,” said Gachagua during an interview with Inooro TV.
“Since then, a very healthy person started becoming sickly and we believe these people harmed him”.
The DP, who has been tasked with leading reforms chaired a two-day national coffee summit, and has vowed to crush the cartels he said have infiltrated the sector and continued to reap benefits meant for the farmers.
During the meeting held in Meru which brought together leaders and other stakeholders from across the country, it was agreed that the Coffee Board of Kenya as proposed in the Coffee Bill 2023 be re-established.
Construction of coffee aggregation centres to improve the quality of coffee and empowerment of the Pest Control Board to regulate pesticides and fight coffee diseases are also part of the proposals which are to be subjected to a select team before being implemented in the next 90 days.
Highlighting how dangerous the cartels are, the DP stated that the governors were intentionally side-lined and instead, three cabinet secretaries-Mithika Linturi (Agriculture), Moses Kuria (Trade) and Simon Chelugui (Cooperatives) picked to lead the process.
“This war cannot be won by governors, this can only be won by DP and the president, these people; are dangerous and can even kill you,” he asserted.
“The President assigned me the task of leading these people because I have more resources including security since these are not good people”.
