The Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) Vice Chairman, Erick Chepkwony, collapsed and died in Nairobi.
Chepkwony, a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) holder, was also the Chief Officer for Finance at the County Government of Bomet.
Chepkwony, a member of the board of directors at the Tea Board of Kenya (TB), also served as the Regional chairman for factories falling under zone eight, covering Bomet county in the West of Rift Valley (a KTDA zone).
He is said to have collapsed and died after vomiting while in the bathroom.
He had been to the National Treasury, where he was processing the release of funds to the Bomet county government and was scheduled to attend a KTDA meeting.
The KTDA Holdings Chairman Chege Kirundi and Bomet Governor Hillary Barchok on Thursday confirmed the passing of Chepkwony, whom they described as” a hardworking and knowledgeable professional in the finance sector.”
“As we express condolences to the family and wish them strength at this time of need, I must say that as KTDA fraternity, we have lost a good man,” Kirundi said.
“Chepkwony was a knowledgeable, articulate, a conciliator and a good soft soft-spoken leader and professional of great wisdom.”
Kirundi recalls his last conversation with Chepkwony, where he requested to be excused and would attend the finance committee meeting on Wednesday meeting later, only for his colleagues to learn that he had collapsed and died.
Barchok said he was saddened by the passing of CPA Chepkwony, who was a hardworking professional and a respected leader in the tea industry”
“This devastating loss feels even more profound as we remember how full of lite he was just yesterday,” Prof Barchok said of Chepkwony, who has been a Chief Officer for Finance for the last two years.
Professor Barchok stated, “May the Lord grant his loved ones, colleagues and all who knew him the strength and fortitude to endure this painful moment. We stand with his family during this unimaginably difficult time and pledge our steadfast support”.
The last public function he participated in was on May 2, during a Special General Meeting (SGM) at Kapkoros tea factory in Bomet County, where farmers endorsed the separation of four KTDA factories – Kapkoros, Tirkaga, Motigo and Ulenguruone.
Chepkwony was elected a zonal director for Kapset tea factory in Konoin constituency, Bomet county on June 28, 2024, and subsequently picked as the KTDA zone nine chairperson.
On August 23, 2024, Chepkwony was elected the KTDA Holdings vice chairman, with then chairman Enos Njeru being reelected in a poll held in Mombasa. In a boardroom coup of January 23, 2025, Njeru was elbowed out as the board chairman, and in his place, a seasoned advocate of the High Court and long-serving KTDA director, Chege Kirundi, also chairman of Zone three in Muranga county and chairman of Kiru tea factory, was picked to steer the agency’s affairs.
Both Kirundi and Chepkwony have been seeking to turn around the sector with ongoing reforms initiated by the government.
The reserve prices set by the government, which have led to a glut at the Mombasa Tea Auction for two years, are one of the issues that the board has been battling with.
The body was moved to the mortuary pending autopsy.
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