In the Account: Tea Factories Release September Pay and the Bonus

The September tea money, and the annual bonus with it, has left the factory accounts and is sitting in farmers' banks, waiting for Monday.

Kenya Tea Development Agency chairman Enos Njeru said on 9 October, at the Agriculture and Food Summit, that the agency had that day released the September monthly payment together with the second payment, the bonus. Farmers can draw it from Monday 12 October, in normal banking hours.

Saturday is Mazingira Day, a public holiday, so the banks are shut and a balance that arrived on Friday cannot be spent until the week opens. The money is in the account. It is not in the pocket yet.

This year's bonus is thinner, and it is not the same at every factory. President William Ruto, speaking at the same gathering, put the range at about KSh 12 a kilogramme at the lowest factory and about KSh 50 at the highest for the 2025/26 year.

He blamed part of the gap on how individual factories are run, and told growers to elect boards that can manage. A farmer in the west and a farmer in the highlands can deliver the same leaf and take home very different cheques. The monthly pay is for leaf already delivered.

The bonus is the second look at the year, after the factory has sold the tea and paid its own bills.

Why the fake list mattered

In late September a table with the agency's logo, naming 44 factories and their bonuses, went round on phones. KTDA marked it fake and said each factory would declare its own figure, on a date agreed with its board. Africa Check found no genuine list behind the image.

A farmer who budgeted on that table was budgeting on a rumour. Friday's release is the real movement of money. It is still not a published factory-by-factory schedule. A grower learns their rate from their own factory, not from a screenshot.

What Monday actually changes

School fees, a shop debt and a hospital bill have been waiting on this cheque in tea counties for weeks. A bonus of KSh 12 a kilo on a small delivery is a thin envelope. KSh 50 is a different month.

The agency did not, in the Friday statement, give a total for the whole payout, so the national figure is not yet a number a reader can test. What is testable is the date. The cash is in the account from Friday. It can be withdrawn from Monday.

A factory that has not told its growers their rate still owes them that conversation, even after the money has moved.