KEL Chemicals, the company implicated in the production and supply of fake fertiliser to farmers across the country, has called for the arrest of Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mithika Linturi and National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) Managing Director Joseph Kimote.

In a letter to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), KEL Chemicals accused CS Linturi of intimidation and attempting to distort the truth.

“We feel inclined to suggest that as you assess individual responsibility in the light of an overall evaluation of complicity, the conduct and involvement of Mr Franklin Mithika Linturi, the CS Ministry of Agriculture and Mr Joseph Kimote, the MD National Cereals and Produce Board, should be scrutinized,” the letter read in part.

Through lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi, KEL Chemicals accused CS Linturi and Kimote of developing a narrative to pin the entire mess on them while abetting other companies mentioned in the scandal.

“You will appreciate the extent of the inability of the two public officers to properly understand and appreciate the true accounts of facts and exert themselves within the confines of the law. They put a strain on the law in a manner that furthered impunity through manifest lack of fairness, impartiality and outright manipulation,” Senior Counsel Abdullahi stated.

Last week, KEL Chemical’s chief operations officer Devesh Patel  appeared before the National Assembly Committee for Agriculture, where he implicated several officials in the scandal. Some of them are attached to the office of the president, Ministry of Agriculture, NCPB, and Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS).

He told the committee that he had been lured into a meeting by top government officials and coerced to take fall for the scandal.