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Coffee farmers face further wait for EC funds

    NAIROBI

    Kenyan coffee farmers are facing further delays before receiving earnings stabilisation funds from the European Union (EU), formally released on Monday, according to news reports. Although the EC released Ksh 500 million (US $6.4 million) - dating back to 1991, as a result of difficulties within and between the EC and the Kenyan government - under the stabilisation of export earnings (STABEX) initiative, Kenya’s Economic Secretary at the Treasury, Peter Gakunu, was quoted in news reports as saying that there were still 25 administrative steps the government had to go through before it could access the funds and disburse them to farmers.

    The head of the European Commission (EC) delegation in Kenya, Gary Quince, admitted that the procedures were “tedious” but said they were the same agreed by the EC with all ACP (Afro Caribbean and Pacific) countries within the STABEX initiative. “The claim that disbursement of STABEX resources is slow is fair comment,” the ‘Daily Nation’ quoted him as saying. A steep decline in world coffee prices has hit the Kenyan coffee industry hard, though output has also been sorely affected by disillusion among coffee farmers with the chaotic state of the country’s marketing structures. The Coffee Board of Kenya estimates that coffee production in Kenya has dropped from 104,000 mt in 1988 to just 46,000 mt in 2000.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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