Mwepesi Ajenda Nne - Precinct Project Office launched

Thursday 15 June, 2023

The Nairobi Review by McCreadie Andias 

Ven Council Fredrick Gacheru on behalf of Rt Rev Charles M. Muturi, launched the first Precinct Project office, an initiative that fosters the empowerment of farmers and ensuring acess to indigenous foods for Kenyans in the diaspora. 

Gacheru officially launched the project on 14th June, during a tremendous event that was graced by distinguished guests including Kiambu County CECM for trade madam Nancy Gichungwa, Tobias Ololo, a representative from the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS), influential speakers Ms Serah Kahuri and Dr, Njoki Mitugo among many. 

The event saw the inauguration of MWEPESI AJENDA NNE - Precinct project office (MAN - PPO) bringing together farmers, government agencies and stakeholders along the food chain. 

Speaking during the event, Tobias Ololo addressed the need for farmers to adopt this project with an aim of marketing their produce from a farm in the rural area to a local supermarket or external market. 

Ololo Elaborate that for instance every exporter to the US is required to register with the Food Drug and Authority agency to get Authorization for exporting a process that requires the Precinct which is a Unique identifier Code. 

Any food Facility around the Precinct will be attached a certain unique Facility Identifier Code which is a validation of the principal address of a private company that is abroad. 

The process is at times difficult to acquire and farmers often get challenges to market their products. 

The MAN-PPO coding solution provides an electronic address which is tied to coordinates of areas which means any location within the 47 counties can be registered and identified. This will resolve origin traceability and accessibility in events where the products need to be recalled or inspected by the importer. 

The Application seeks to apply the pre-export/Export, pre-import/ Import distribution process and interface for an import or export shipment to any part of the world. 

The project will facilitate entry into the export market which will not only create a large business scale to local farmers but also market local products abroad. 

The initiative targets to create 46,000 offices hence creating 46,000 jobs which will result in wealth creation, increase in food security and livelihood that will promote not only the MAN-PPO agenda but also the Government's Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's) with a focus on Agriculture and land use. 

The initiative will also promote capacity building due to the training materials. 

The Kenya Bureau of Standards(KEBS) , an integral partner of the project will support the initiative through coordination of the relevant agencies in the development of training materials and also export/import documentation that will be useful in mitigating the export /import challenges traders face while trying to export commodities to the external market. 

In addition, KEBS will support the coordination of establishment of laboratories where there is none and training of personnel with a view of acquiring accreditation, which is important in the mutual recognition agreement. This will ensure that confirmation assessment results like inspection result, test result and  Quality documentation i.e the KEBS quality mark when issue will be accepted by any other quality assessment body worldwide. 

Frederick Kamau Gacheru, the Bishop Administrative Secretary Mt. Kenya South lauded the initiative as very ambitious

"This is a very ambitious programme, and a programme that will be very beneficial to the members of this church and particularly empowers the farmers who go on loss for the products which ought to be taken to the market but are not beneficial to them." 

During the event, a plaque was unveiled in honor of the first Bishop of Mt. Kenya.