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KENYA: AWENDO D.C WAS RIGHT WITH CLAIMS OF RAMPANT CANE POACHING AND CUT-THROAT SCRAMBLING FOR RAW MATERIALS BY THE THREE SUGAR MILLS IN THE REGION.

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Writes Leo Odera Omolo in Awendo Town.

The Awendo D.C was very right when he made a claim that the Ndhiwa based Sukari Industries was involved in excessive cane poaching from Sony Sugar Company cane growing zones.

The concern of the Awendo D.C. Arthur Mugira is a matter of utmost urgency concern of all the stakeholders in the region because the “poaching of cane has become the source of insecurity in the region.

First of all, it is the sole responsibility of the D.C of a given area of his or her administrative jurisdiction as the chairman of the District Security Committee to ensure that peace and tranquility is prevailing and a matter of paramount importance. And law and order is maintained at all costs.

The D.C. had accused the Ndhiwa based Sukari Industries Limited that the company is poaching and harvesting cane crops from farmers contracted by SonySugar company during night times.

The relevant facts, which must be taken into account in order to crown up this argument , is the fact that the Sukari Industries went to into operations and productions late last year after the completion of its establishment, installations of its crushing machineries, stores and administrative bocks and all other facilities and accessories.

The Mill, which is located near Oria market right on the border of Ndhiwa an Uriri districts has continue harvesting cane and milling despite the fact that it had no nucleus estate farm of its own on which it could grow its own cane for the raw materials and maintained continuous steady supplies for its mill

It is therefore depending entirely on harvesting raw cane crops from out growers inside both Ndhiwa and Awendo, Rongo and Uriri district, which it has no material/financial inputs on, but which were developed with the resources of SonySugar company with impunity.

So far the Sukari Industries has not seen it fit to develop its own cane by way for financing the out growers within its own cane growing zones. And it has continue milling using cane harvested at night from the out growers farms which were developed with funds made available to the farmers through land preparation loans and cane development programs by SonySugar, running into millions of shillings.

Prior to the establishment of the Sukari Industries, the Awendo based SonySugar had contracted close to 27,000 small scale cane farmers within its sugar cane growing zones and similar number of non-contracted farmers. But even these non-contracted out growers farmers had benefited from some kind of farm input from Sony Sugar such a cane seedlings, fertilizers and transportation costs. The only sensible way for the SonySugar to recover its money that it had used in loans to the farmers for the company to be allowed to harvest, crush and sell the made sugar to the consumers. If the same cane is harvested and taken into another mill, which had not played part in its development, then SonySugar would not be in legal position to recover its money through the deductions of the proceeds from the cane bills so that it could replenish its books of accounts and the money could be consider as well as lost.

The argument, therefore require the simplest and most elementary arithmetic. In this context, the concerns expressed by the Awendo D.C. Arthur Mugira are genuine and represented the true picture of the happenings on the ground.

To be more honest, both Sukari Industries and the nearby Trans-Mara Sugar mills were established in total defiance and flagrant violation of the rule and regulations set by the Kenya Sugar Board, which is tasked with the responsibility of regulating the industry in this country. It explicitly stipulates that any investor or investors intending to establish a new white sugar processing mill must ensure that such a factory is established in area which is not less than 40 kilometers apart from the existing sugar mill.

The potential investor is also required to disclose its source of cane supplies to keep the mill running and strictly not to encroach into another mill’s cane growing zone.

Due to allegedly corruptive deals, the two mills were established against the entire existing rule governing the industry and sugar production in this country, and hence the current cut-throat competition in scrambling for raw cane being witnessed in this region.

Mr Lalji Divecha, the general manager of the Sukari Industries must accept these facts as presented above and should not fly out of the truth. His remarks that the D.C.’s complaints were baseless only amounted to “excessive arrogance on his part.”

I have been informed that the KSB is just about to disburse close to Khs 300 million plus to the

Sukari Industries for the company to advance its out growers farmers with advance loan for land preparation, cultivation and development of cane crops in its own zones. I hope the money will be utilized to the letters and that there will be no repetition of the old Madhvani case in Kwale District some years ago. In Kwale, the money which was given to the company as an advance for the resuscitation of the then run-down Ramisi Sugar Company had gone to the dogs an the investors disappeared in the thin air not to be heard off up to-date.

One thing which the Sukari Industries must come out clean is the question of its importation of close to 35 unqualified workers from India and Pakistani, though this is the common practices in this country where the investor happens to be Asians. In all the sugar mills owned by Asians, the indignant Kenyan workers are getting row deals.

Kenyans are only used for the manual work as laborers, whereas all the staff jobs goes to Indian and Pakistanis workers imported from foreign countries. In the case of African workers, they are only engaged as casual workers, and never issued with the letters of employment by the employers. Mandatory deductions such as PAYE, NSSF and NHIF are things of the past. The employees have no workmen’s compensation arrangement.

Tax-evasion is some of the normal features in the sugar mills. Both the Labor Ministry inspectorate teams and the sugar workers unions appeared to have been compromised and only singing and dancing to the tones of the employers, who appeared to have taken the government for ransom immigration ministry include. Most of the Indian and Pakistani workers imported into this country to work in the sugar mills are not sufficiently qualified to hold the jobs they are engaged on.

Whereas the SonySugarhas employed close to 2500 Kenyans in its establishment who are making important contributions to this country’s economy through the mandatory salary deductions for NSSF, NHIF, PAYE and other important national funds and KRA. Moreover, the SonySugar is using its money and grades repairing the roads and building bridges within its sugar cane producing zones, the Sukari Industries and Trans-Mara Sugar Companies are making good use of these roads at the expense of SonySugar.

Ends

Kenya: The relevant ministries should lunch full scale investigation of faulty weighbridges and weighing machines in shops where Kenyan are being fleeced of millions

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News Analysis By Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City
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PRIOR to Kenya attaining its political independence and thereafter during the post-independence, there used be the department of Weight and Measures within the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

The responsibility of this department was to send its highly qualified technicians and staff to carry out regular checks on weighing machine shops butcheries and even in bakeries and confectioneries outlets.

It used to detect the activities of unscrupulous traders and businessmen involved in cheating members of the pubic by selling underweight breads or sugar and meat and even maize-flour meals on sales in shops.

The staff of this department kept the traders on their toes, and those who were caught red-handed in the act of cheating customers while using defective or tempered weighing machines were promptly arraigned in courts and if found guilty heavy penalties and fines were meted out.

The technicians used to make regular to all market places and shopping centers visiting butcheries and all the businesses where weighing machines were kept in use as tools of the trade and thereafter inspecting such machines used to stamp them with the government seal certifying the correctness and validity of such machines to be the correct one.

However, for some unknown reason and for some years now, Kenyans do hear no cases of readers being charged with cheating by way of using tempered with weighing machines. What went wrong? Did this important department ceased from existence?

There is public outcry about the rampant cheating through tempered with weighing machines. It is affecting meat eaters, sugar consumers, wheat flours, baked beads, and even maize flour meals selling in shops appeared to be underweight.

The area which appears to have been totally neglected and the hardest hit being those machines used by meat shops and butcheries. Nearly all the weighing machine are tempered with or the purpose of cheating the customers.

It is even much worse in the sugar sub-sector of the economy. There are reports indicating that sugar cane farmers are losing millions of shillings for their raw materials to the sugar mills for crushing. The deliveries are made via weighbridge, which are allegedly tempered with an have remained un-inspected for years as the farmers continue incurring losses running into millions 0f shillings.

The worse scandals being witnessed n the sugar factories owned by Asian investors and under the top management of expatriate managers recruited from India and Pakistan.

The issue of tempered with weighbridge was detected about 15 years ago by the government auditors sent to the government owned SonySugar Company based at Awendo Town in the Migori County. The external auditing team which was sent to the facility by the department of Inspectorate of parastatals in the Office of the President carried to a thorough forensic audit and discovered that sugar cane farmers within the Awendo cane growing zone had suffered the heaviest losses in term of money which was abut Kshs 210 millions within a period of ten year through the faulty or deliberately tempered with weighbridge.

The team made a confidential report, which was seen by this writer. The company took stern disciplinary action, resulting n several weighbridge clerks being fired while some were prosecuted

The grieved cane farmers, however, were not compensated for the losses incurred, and the majority of them even weren’t told of the scam and remained unaware of it to-date. It later emerged that this was an inside work of some of unpatriotic managers at the facility, some of them have since left the services of the company, especially those who were suspected to have benefited from this scandal.

The scam began immediately after the hired foreign management team led by a British consortium multinational company Booker Tate Agricultural International had left Awendo in huff after the expiry of the their managerial contract.

About three years ago a prominent sugarcane farmer in Nandi South district operating around Miwani Chemelil area drove his own tractor loaded with cane which he had harvested in his own farm. He took the cane one of the sugar factories, which are located within the Nyanza sugar belt region.

The farmer had thought the heavy load of raw cane he was ferrying to the factory could be weighing approximately about ten tones. When he drove his tractor through the weighbridge at the facility he was shocked when he was told the load of cane he was carrying could only measure about seven and half tons.

And not satisfied with what had come out of the weighbridge, the farmer drove his tractor to another nearby next sugar factory. There he was told that his cane had weighed ten ton. After this the farmer had realized that he would have lost two half tons had he delivered his cane to the first mil. This particular incident was widely published by nearly all the local dailies, but such adverse publicity has never deterred the sugar millers who continued with their cheats with impunity.

Sugar mills owned by Asians include Sukari Industries in Ndhiwa district, West Kenya Sugar Company in Kakamega County, Butali in Kakamega County, Kibos Sugar and Allied Industries in Kisumu County and Trans-Mara sugar Company in Narok County.

In all the five sugar mils, all senior managerial staff jobs positions are excusively held by Indian and Pakistanis
The issue of the tempered weighbridge at the sugar mills was rekindled last week by the striking cane cutters employed by the Mumias Sugar Company in Western Province.

The chairman of the cane cutters at the Mumias Sugar Company Mr Julius Makanda while making his argument on behalf of the striking cane cutters, was quoted as saying that the workers have rejected the offer of extra 20/-.

He further stated that the employer is currently paying them Kshs 223/ per tone harvested I a day. However, it has been difficult for the cane cutter to hit the target set of 7.5 tones per day because of the weighbridge at the factory had been tempered with.

Such claims as the one made by workers representative is worth investigation by competent team of experts formed by the government’s relevant ministry. Most of the harvesting work at Mumias sugar Company and in the mils are carried out in the farms owed by the small scale out growers who might be losing millions of shillings through the tempered with weighbridges.

It is high time the government take the issue of cane farmers being fleeced of millions of their hard earned money through this kin of shameless scam.

Five sugar mills located at the various locations in Western Kenya are owned by Indian investors. The workers in these facilities are reportedly being exploited to the maximum. They are not issued with the letters of appointment and eve those who have served the mills for over ten year remained on casual master -rolls. Mandatory salary deduction such NSSF or NHIF are things the past.

The Kenya Union of Sugar Plantation Workers appeared to have been compromised or its officials re sleeping on the job. This particular union seemed to have ceased to exist. It has never raised its voice abut hired of foreign worker being recruited from India and Pakistan who have flooded the job market with the sugar industries thereby depriving the indignant Kenyans of the scarce employment opportunities.

The expatriate workers some of who are not even properly qualified are the ones holding important jobs such as account clerks, engineers, mechanics, electrical mechanics, fitters, welders, time-keepers, cane yard clerks, weighbridge clerks.

This is done despite Kenya having trained thousands of workers in these categories even in excess of it is industrial output. Some of the Indians and Pakistanis are even working as tractor driver and cooks and as lowly laced job such as sweepers, office messengers etc.

These unqualified expatiate workers should pack and go home and create job opportunities for hundreds of unemployed Kenya youth shoo-leavers.

The fitters who were temporarily imported into the country for the purpose of helping during the installation of new cane milling machines and have stayed on jobs should be made to vacate and ordered out.

Members of the current parliament representing sugar cane growing regions also stand blamed for not effectively articulating for the farmer problem. The majority of them it is being alleged to have succumbed to mega bribery, which appeared to have put them into total silence.

Rumors are also rampant that some of them MPs have benefited by way of having the materials used in building and construction of their palatial houses in their rural homes were corruptively sourced or supplied by the sugar mills barons to silent them.

The time, therefore is ripe for the electorate in the sugar cane growing regions to the a serious note about the conduct of their MPs ad ensure that such people are voted out during the impeding general election a replaced by energetic and those committed to assist the excessively exploited sugar cane farmers and cane cutters.

Both the immigration and Labor Ministries also stand to be scathingly criticized for not effecting and properly implementing the government laid down policy on the employment of expatriates in this country.

Ends

The Mega Bandits and Super Heavy-Duty Looters of Africa’s Wealth

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From: Judy Miriga

Reason why Lack of Peace and Harmony is all around us:

Where there is no Peace and Harmony it has been noted that, Selfishness & Greed of the Rich and the Wealthy Corporate Special Interest took center stage to influence manipulation through monopolizing business and trade to benefit a few and is what has fueled Racial animosity, brought poverty, destroyed middle-class and which resulted to bad economy that now affects the whole region of the world. When special interest take control of everyone’s life, the wheel of life’s survival through the economic span grinds to a halt and this as a result throws people out of balance and thus weakens the Society. Hate, Selfishness and Greed make those who suffer from it fail to make constructive logistical fair judgement of equating and balancing principles of what makes a good life. Most of them believe that, pressurizing people into submission to fear-factor through pushing people into pain and suffering, poverty, careless killings, marginalization, discrimination and intimidation is the answer to wealth and power……..and as a result is the ticket to happiness. This they are all wrong.

Lack of Peace and Harmony puts us at loggerhead and we find ourselves to hate and be at war with each other. This situation is made worse from those characters who produce bad leadership and it is because of lack of ability to generate enough confidence, failure to build trust, lack of knowledge and understanding and failure to create environment for love.

Lack of Truth and Transparency comes from self-pride, selfish-ego and greediness……..with this one cannot avail checks and accountability but instead engage in Excessive lies that come from those who demand leadership by force to protect their bad deeds.

No Nation or society can flourishing or do well when there is no love amongst its citizens and with that it is not possible to generate peace and unity for all; and so happiness is left to only a few rich, of which the greater part of members of the society remain poor, unhappy and are miserable.

At this point and because of disparity the vibrant youth engage in bad groups in gangs or in drugs, others engage in child porno or prostitution, child abuse and neglect, or are simply wasted. This results in the destruction of the Society’s fabric, strength and stability.

If people of a Nation are satisfied, have affordable healthcare, can afford education even when one is from poor family, enjoy themselves in Social Diversity programs and have access to opportunities to creative arts, innovation technology and science; peace and unity abounds. Where there is no harmony, hate thrives and people plan bad things against each other all the times……..

There is really no need for war against each other if solutions can be found to harmonize our differences. This is why we all must go in search for good leadership. Good Leadership is able to provide a balance, where unity for common good of all can be found……..a good leader will strive to find ways and means to avoid excitement for violence. It is because, a good leader understands that frustrations comes as a result for lack of needs which generates sense of deprivation and which provide an opening for conflict. A good leader will provide a balance by creating opportunities for engagements; But organized crime can provide nothing good at the end of the day, except pain and sufferings with disunity that directs destructive channel to interfere with public peace and unity which is unacceptable and must be suppressed by good people who are after Peace and Unity for common good of all.

Good Leadership:

Leadership is a skilful talent needed to organize logistics from groups of people and direct Plan of Action to improve matters or level up programs that leads to achieving desired goals.

A good leader is in command to influence harmony and is able to generate conducive environment where Peace and Unity for common good of all is able to thrive. A good leader is guided by Wisdom and is defined by principles of character that shape his or her aspirations and passion for uprightness and in virtue. A good leader is always in command at any given time and when situation gets out of control, he or she is able to find collective solution and drive calmness in a short space of time. As an organizer, he or she plans with specifics laid down to achieve the desired goals. A leader should engage and direct logistics, theories and ideas into perspectives for sustainability in achieving both short-term for immediate or emergency and long term goals for sustainability in a diversified Plan of Action; and where opportunities for progressive agenda is open to all without animosity, hate, discrimination, biasness or marginalization or racial discrimination of any kind. A good leader is able to make solid foundation that lasts.

Good leaders can be trusted to offer good guidance, most favorably and in Truth have substances to which are laid on reliable Plan of Action with an aims to meet specific targets in a specified given time-frame where, at the end, the success story is listed in history of honors. Good leadership qualities are in-built characters that attracts likeability and Trust. If a leader cannot be liked or trusted, that spells danger of some sorts.

Building collective proposal that generates unity of purpose for Mutually common good of all is an ingredient mostly needed at a time of change and where Strategic Plan of Action is developed to accommodate diversity of interests that are acceptable and appeals to public mandate without discrimination.

Bad Leaders:

Unfavorable bad leaders are associated with meanness, selfish, greedy, hate, divide and rule elements, are ready to go for war even where there is no need for war….and a bad leader produces unfavorable bad results that can turn destructive or catastrophic endangering many lives.

When lawmakers engage in unfavorable behaviors and still have guts to tell bold lies repeatedly…….lie after lie after lies, there is an expansive problem looming and people must be ware……it is equally not wise to follow such leaders. It is because their judgments are questionable and they cannot be relied upon…….It has been tested before that, where there is too much lies, there are corrupt practices of intimidations, marginalization, bad secrets and fear spells that go with it and consequently there are pools of graft and impunity that go a long way in order that their plan s become successful under threats, fears and intimidation………..This is not right……….It is a backward way of life……….

In reality, there are no truth that can be found in such group of characters who 24/7 engage in lies, and in definition, they are hard product to sell. Their lives are surrounded with suspicious characters, their business are done in secrets, they make it difficult for people to get to know who they really are………most of them engage in syndicates of business that avoid paying taxes but overload public to pay their debts, and engages in conspiracy theories of prejudices dividing people against each other, approve and supports clandestine government plans to deprive their people through Intellectual Property Thieving of public wealth resources, elaborate murder plots to acquire public and community land, engage in suppression of secret plan with other organized criminals and schemes behind certain political powers that be………and these are all doomsday………These behavior cannot escape massive destruction and slaughter of human beings lives and livelihood, a Holocoust of Great destruction resulting in the extensive loss of human lives where people get burned alive, or are killed en mass. Where is the happiness or fun in all these…….???

Causes of War and how to Avoid Wars and Disharmony

Across the world, people are at pains and are extremely very angry for one reason or the other……to push the world into war because of selfishness and greedy for special interest would be a disaster. No one wants to go to war……..especially when people know what war entails with its repercussions………

If truly someone cares, no one will drive people to war to kill each other…….No…….We need each other and can plan better to improve each others lives in a shared plan for “Give and Take”…….Why must we kill……….shouldn’t we care to Love and enjoy the blessings of happiness….???

War interventions have been done time and again but Special Interest take people of the world for granted ……. ……United Nations international court to arbitrate disputes have not been taken seriously to produce the desired goals, ……..people get fed up ……. as these prescriptions have turned out ineffective, people’s anger grows……. Some governments freely ignore arbitration rulings that are against them…… but we still believe that, collective security idea can be reached when strict measures are imposed by good leaders of the world.

A good plan should be appealing and be adoptable to suit the majority of the Society fairly:

It is a pity and a shame that unscrupulous Special Interests with corrupt governments of the world continued to cause all manner of Violations and Abuse against Human Rights with outrageous Crime, destroying livelihood and survival and inflicting pain and sufferings all around, is by all means not acceptable and must be condemned by all good people of the world.

In focusing for the poor of Africa, may people of the world stand with Africa to bring normalcy and order for the goodness sake. With excessive corruption, graft and impunity in Africa, a demon that has eaten deep into the African fabric is now threatening Global livelihood and survival of all people of the world. This monster is threatening to devour livelihood of the poor victims in Africa while the corrupt leaders after stealing public wealth and resources, are given national honors at high places in the world by the wealthy and most powerful.

This is very sad, defies logics, is inhuman, must be condemned with the strongest words it deserves and good people of the world must unite to influence good measure of change and discourage this behavior for goodness sake……

Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com

– – – – – – – – – – –

— On Sat, 10/6/12, margaret gichuki wrote:

From: margaret gichuki
Subject: The Mega Bandits and Super Heavy-Duty Looters of Africa’s Wealth
Date: Saturday, October 6, 2012, 10:37 AM

Uncle G,

You make me laugh.All the time when I read you.

Did you say they memorize the act #’s………….?????…………..lol!!!!!!!!!!!

But seriously, this is a shocker.Can’t the Swiss banks give the money back to their countries after they die.? Shouldn’t there be some international law to this effect.?..Are you saying the Libyan Gov.(or what looks like a Gov) won’t get Gaddafi’s root back.?

And I thought all along Mubarak was a saint.Gwa!

Heavens G,….$ 10 is alot then.I mean alot of money if it can do all that.

I need you to smash the Kenyan coconut heads.They are too many.I will help you identify them.”))

On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 8:57 PM, George Ayittey wrote:
The “GODS” may hae gotten rid of them but we still haven’t receivered the loot. They keep the loot in SECRET NUMBERED Swiss bank accounts and, since the money is stolen and they don’t trust anybody, they keep the secret numbers in the heads. So when they die, they take the numbers with them. According to Swiss law, if the money in a numbered account is not claimed after a certain period, it is turned over to the bank. So the standing joke among Swiss bankers is this: “When is the next African tin-pot going to die?”

Now, here is what you can do with $10 billion, which is $10,000.000.000. You can:

Fix the entire dilapidated railway systems in BOTH Ghana and Nigeria combined. Fixing Kenya’s would cost say $3 billion.

Fixing the road from Nairobi to Mombasa would cost $500 million or half a billion. So imagine how many roads $10 billion can repair.

Build and stock 40,000 primary schools and 20,000 clinics for the people.

Hope this gives you some idea.

Had to give up the Cutlass. It was no match for hardened coconuts. Since they are stone0deaf and imervious to reason, you smash them!

George

On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 12:12 PM, margaret gichuki wrote:
Get me the SLEDGE-HAMMER!

GA,

Please, why do you need sledge hammer.? Haven’t the ”GODS” taken care of those leaders.BTW, you are a Prof. of #’s.Can you tell me what say $ 10 billion can do a country like yours ‘Ghana or Kenya.

Give me something to work with.Like your cutlass that you no longer use.:)))…I want to keep busy.

Wams

On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 11:24 AM, George Ayittey wrote:
Margaret,

The Mega Bandits and Super Heavy-Duty Looters of Africa’s Wealth

In 2004, the African Union claimed that corruption alone costs Africa $148 billion a year and “Africa experiences capital flight of up to $90 billion a year and the external stock of capital held by Africa’s political elites is $700 billion-800 billion” . http://bit.ly/Q178GX,
http://bit.ly/uc25jQ

Let’s place these figures in perspective. In 2009, Africa’s total foreign debt stood at around $300 billion. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, Africa not only fed itself but exported food as well. Not anymore. Today, it spends over $20 billion a year on food imports. [Nigeria is said to spend $120 billion annually (unsubstantiated) on food imports.] Africa also spends $20 billion a year on its military – importing weapons, maintaining equipment, paying soldiers and service personnel, etc.

The military is a colonial institution, introduced into Africa to suppress the aspirations of the people for freedom. Only few traditional African societies – such as Ashanti, Dahomey, Kanuri and Zulu – out of the over 2,000 ethnic societies had standing armies. In the vast majority of African societies, the people were the army. In the event of conflict, the chief would summon men of certain age grades and lead them into war. After the cessation of hostilities, the people’s army was disbanded so that it did not become a drain on the tribal economy. Therefore, military rule is as alien as colonial rule itself. What benefits have Africa derived from its military?

The military has now become a destabilizing and destructive force – a scourge – in Africa. Soldiers have ruined one African economy after another with reckless abandon and looted one treasury after another with brutal military efficiency. Though ALL dictators have stolen millions of Africa’s wealth, the mega bandits and super heavy duty looters have all been military officers.

Between 1970 and the early 2004, more than $450 billion in oil money flowed into Nigerian government coffers. But according to Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, set up in 2004, £220 billion ($412 billion) was “squandered” or looted by Nigeria’s military rulers – s slew of military generals. “We cannot be accurate down to the last figure but that is our projection,” Osita Nwajah, a commission spokesman (Telegraph, June 25, 2005). The stolen fortune tallies almost exactly with the £220 billion of western aid given to Africa between 1960 and 1997. That amounted to six times the American help given to post-war Europe under the Marshall Plan. Between 970 and 2008, $854 billion was removed from Africa by illicit financial flows
http://bit.ly/s1Zf9a

Here is the list individual cases of banditry:

Name Family Fortune

1. Col Muammar Khaddafi of Libya Over $60 billion
2. Hosni Mubarak of Egypt Over $2 billion
3. Ben Ali of Tunisia Over $13 billion
4. General Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire Over $10 billion
5. General I.B. Babangida of Nigeria Over $9 billion
6. Lt. General Omar al-Bashir of Sudan Over $7 billion
7. General Sani Abacha of Nigeria Over $5 billion
8. General Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo Over $3 billion

Notice the preponderance of “Generals.” Mubarak was a former officer
in Egyptian air force and so was Ben Ali.

Get me the SLEDGE-HAMMER!

Colonised and coloniser, empire’s poison infects us all

Ideas that underpinned Britain’s imperial project led not only to torture in Kenya, but war and catastrophe in Europe

o The Guardian, Monday 8 October 2012 20.30 BST

[image]‘The ideology that led to Hitler’s war and the Holocaust was developed by the colonial powers.’ Illustration by Daniel Pudles

Over the gates of Auschwitz were the words “Work Makes You Free”. Over the gates of the Solovetsky camp in Lenin’s gulag: “Through Labour – Freedom!”. Over the gates of the Ngenya detention camp, run by the British in Kenya: “Labour and Freedom”. Dehumanisation appears to follow an almost inexorable course.

Last week three elderly Kenyans established the right to sue the British government for the torture that they suffered – castration, beating and rape – in the Kikuyu detention camps it ran in the 1950s.

Many tens of thousands were detained and tortured in the camps. I won’t spare you the details: we have been sparing ourselves the details for far too long. Large numbers of men were castrated with pliers. Others were raped, sometimes with the use of knives, broken bottles, rifle barrels and scorpions. Women had similar instruments forced into their vaginas. The guards and officials sliced off ears and fingers, gouged out eyes, mutilated women’s breasts with pliers, poured paraffin over people and set them alight. Untold thousands died.

The government’s secret archive, revealed this April, shows that the attorney general, the colonial governor and the colonial secretary knew what was happening. The governor ensured that the perpetrators had legal immunity: including the British officers reported to him for roasting prisoners to death. In public the colonial secretary lied and kept lying.

Little distinguishes the British imperial project from any other. In all cases the purpose of empire was loot, land and labour. When people resisted (as some of the Kikuyu did during the Mau Mau rebellion), the response everywhere was the same: extreme and indiscriminate brutality, hidden from public view by distance and official lies.

Successive governments have sought to deny the Kikuyu justice: destroying most of the paperwork, lying about the existence of the rest, seeking to have the case dismissed on technicalities. Their handling of this issue, and the widespread British disavowal of what happened in Kenya, reflects the way this country has been brutalised by its colonial history. Empire did almost as much harm to the imperial nations as it did to their subject peoples.

In his book Exterminate All the Brutes, Sven Lindqvist shows how the ideology that led to Hitler’s war and the Holocaust was developed by the colonial powers. Imperialism required an exculpatory myth. It was supplied, primarily, by British theorists.

In 1799 Charles White began the process of identifying Europeans as inherently superior to other peoples. By 1850 the disgraced anatomist Robert Knox had developed the theme into fully fledged racism. His book The Races of Man asserted that dark-skinned people were destined to be enslaved and then annihilated by the “lighter races”. Dark meant almost everyone: “What a field of extermination lies before the Saxon, Celtic and Sarmatian races!”

Remarkable as it may sound, this view soon came to dominate British thought. In common with most of the political class, W Winwood Reade,Alfred Russell Wallace, Herbert Spencer, Frederick Farrar, Francis Galton, Benjamin Kidd and even Charles Darwin saw the extermination of dark-skinned people as an inevitable law of nature. Some of them argued that Europeans had a duty to speed it up: both to save the integrity of the species and to put the inferior “races” out of their misery.

These themes were picked up by German theorists. In 1893 Alexander Tille, drawing on British writers, claimed that “it is the right of the stronger race to annihilate the lower”. In 1901 Friedrich Ratzel argued in Der Lebensraum that Germany had a right and duty, like Europeans in the Americas, to displace “primitive peoples”. In Mein Kampf, Hitler explained that the German empire’s eastward expansion would mirror the western and southern extension of British interests. He systematised and industrialised what imperial nations had been doing for five centuries. The scale was greater, the location different, the ideology broadly the same.

I believe that the brutalisation of empire also made the pointless slaughter of the first world war possible. A ruling class that had shut down its feelings to the extent that it could engineer a famine in India in the 1870s in which between 12 million and 29 million people died was capable of almost anything. Empire had tested not only the long-range weaponry that would be deployed in northern France, but also the ideas.

Nor have we wholly abandoned them. Commenting on the Kikuyu case in the Daily Mail, Max Hastings charged that the plaintiffs had come to London “to exploit our feeble-minded justice system”. Hearing them “represents an exercise in state masochism”. I suspect that if members of Hastings’ club had been treated like the Kikuyu, he would be shouting from the rooftops for redress. But Kenyans remain, as colonial logic demanded, the other, bereft of the features and feelings that establish our common humanity.

So, in the eyes of much of the elite, do welfare recipients, “problem families”, Muslims and asylum seekers. The process of dehumanisation, so necessary to the colonial project, turns inwards. Until this nation is prepared to recognise what happened and how it was justified, Britain, like the countries it occupied, will remain blighted by imperialism.

• Twitter: @GeorgeMonbiot

• A fully referenced version of this article can be found atwww.monbiot.com

Top China delegate pulls out of IMF meet amid islands row
By Lesley Wroughton | Reuters –

[image]Reuters/Reuters – China’s Central Bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan listens to a question at a news conference during the ongoing National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s parliament, in Beijing March 12, 2012. …more REUTERS/Jason Lee less

TOKYO (Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday that China’s central bank governor will not lead the Chinese delegation at the IMF’s semi-annual meeting this week, in what appeared to be a snub to host Japan.

Zhou Xiaochuan’s failure to attend the meeting comes after relations between China and Japan have slumped to their worst in years over their competing claims to sovereignty of some islands in the East China Sea.

The row has been marked by violent protests and calls for boycotts of Japanese products in China. Japanese car makers, including Toyota Motor, later reported a tumble in auto sales in the world’s biggest car market.
“We were informed two days ago that Governor Zhou’s schedule might require him to cancel his lecture in Tokyo,” an IMF spokeswoman said. “It has now been confirmed that his deputy Yi Gang will represent him.”

Zhou had been set to deliver what amounted to a closing keynote lecture on Sunday.
“The Tokyo meeting is an extremely important international summit,” Japanese Finance Minister Koriki Jojima said at a press conference. “It is deeply regrettable that the representatives of the (Chinese) authorities are not participating.”

The IMF comments confirm a report on Tuesday by Chinese state news agency Xinhua that China’s delegation will not be led by its most senior finance officials.
According to Chinese protocol, only the most senior officials usually lead such trips. China’s delegation will be led by Yi Gang, vice head of the People’s Bank of China, and Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao, Xinhua said.
The disputed group of islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, are located near rich fishing grounds and potentially huge oil-and-gas reserves. Taiwan also asserts its sovereignty over the uninhabited islets.

Japan is scheduled to host the IMF and World Bank annual meetings for the first time in nearly half a century. About 20,000 people are expected to attend the events, which end on Sunday, making it one of the world’s largest international conferences.

“If he (Zhou) is not coming, it is regrettable that a representative of the Chinese authorities does not participate in this important international meeting in Tokyo. At all events, Japan-China economic relationship is very important and Japan will continue to communicate with China from a broader standpoint,” said a Japanese government official.

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said in Tokyo on Wednesday that he had great faith Japan and China would find a way to cooperate in the future.

“SYMBOLIC”

Earlier this week, Xinhua also reported that China’s state-owned banks Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Agricultural Bank of China, will not attend the IMF and the World Bank meetings.

Tim Condon, head of Asian research at ING, said Zhou’s absence was a way for Beijing to express its displeasure over the islands row and would not have a material impact on the country.

“It’s very symbolic and attention grabbing, but doesn’t really inflict any economic harm,” he said. “It would be very easy for China to escalate the matter if they wanted to and inflict economic damage.”

Tokyo and Beijing have traded increasingly sharp words in the dispute, which has seen both countries send patrol boats to waters near the disputed islands, raising concerns that an unintended collision or other incident could escalate into a broader clash.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged China and Japan to let “cool heads” prevail in the dispute.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said in late September that his country will not compromise on the islands, saying they were “an inherent part of our territory in light of history and also under international law.”

Chinese state media say the islands have been “sacred territory since ancient times”.

The dispute has bubbled as several Asian governments have argued over sovereignty of islands in the South China Sea.

But the Senkaku/Diaoyu row escalated in September when Japan bought the islands from their private owner to prevent fiery nationalist politician from buying them.

(Additional reporting by Kaori Kaneka in TOKYO: Koh Gui Qing in BEIJING; Editing by Neil Fullick)

Africa: World Bank Refuses Call to Halt Land Deals
By Carey L. Biron, 5 October 2012

[image]Photo: P. Casier/CGIAR

Farming the land with the help of cattle.
Washington — The World Bank has rejected a call to suspend its involvement in large scale agricultural land acquisition following the release of a major report by the international aid agency Oxfam on the negative impact of international land speculation in developing countries.

“We share the concerns Oxfam raised in their report,” the bank stated in an unusually lengthy public rebuttal to the Oxfam Report. “However, we disagree with Oxfam’s call for a moratorium on World Bank Group…investments in land intensive large-scale agricultural enterprises, especially during a time of rapidly rising global food prices.”

“A moratorium focused on the Bank Group targets precisely those stakeholders doing the most to improve practices – progressive governments, investors, and us. Taking such a step would do nothing to help reduce the instances of abusive practices and would likely deter responsible investors willing to apply our high standards,” the rebuttal said.

Relevant Links

International Writers and Artists Warn Global Land Rush Is Hurting the Poorest

Land Sold Off in Last Decade Could Grow Enough Food to Feed a Billion People

Over the past year, aid agencies, local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and development watchdogs have warned that international investors are increasingly engaging in massive and sometimes predatory land deals in the developing world, particularly in Africa. These acquisitions are partly to blame for rising food insecurity.

Food prices are once again nearing record highs. In late August, the World Bank warned that due to adverse weather in parts of Europe and the United States, the global cost of certain staple crops was approaching levels last seen in 2008.

Ironically, multinational companies interested in growing food crops to address this need have been doing much of the recent investing. According to Oxfam, however, two-thirds of the investments made between 2000 and 2010 were exclusively for export-oriented crops, while other lands are being used to meet the increasing international demand for biofuels.

“Already an area of land the size of London is being sold to foreign investors every six days in poor countries,” Oxfam stated, noting that in Liberia, land deals have “swallowed up” 30 percent of the country over the past five years.

The report did not reject what good can potentially result from private investment but warned that food-price spikes from 2008 to 2009 led to the tripling of land deals, as “land was increasingly viewed as a profitable investment” even though it largely failed to benefit local communities.

Slow the speculation

“The world is facing an unbridled land rush that is exposing poor people to hunger, violence and the threat of a lifetime in poverty. The World Bank is in a unique position to stop this,” Jeremy Hobbs, Oxfam’s executive director, said Thursday, noting that the bank both invests in land and advises developing countries.

Oxfam is calling on the World Bank to temporarily halt its investments in agricultural land to give it time to review the advice it offers developing countries, and to put in place stronger policies to slow or stop the speculation and “land-grabbing” projects in which it is said to be involved.

World Bank investment in agriculture has reportedly tripled in the past decade. Since 2008, however, local communities have also brought 21 formal complaints against bank-funded projects that they say have violated their rights.

In a way, the bank’s response to the call for a moratorium demonstrated outright denial: “The Bank Group does not support speculative land investments or acquisitions which take advantage of weak institutions in developing countries or which disregard principles of responsible agricultural investment.”

The bank also noted that 90 percent of its agricultural investment is focused on smallholders, and that the agricultural work of its private-sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), has provided 37,000 jobs. By 2050, it warned, the global population is set to grow by two billion people, requiring a 70 percent increase in global food production.

Still, the bank recognised that its massive systems are imperfect and highlighted an upcoming overhaul of related guidelines that would “review and update its environmental and social safeguards policies”.

“We agree that instances of abuse do exist, particularly in countries where governance is weak, and we share Oxfam’s belief that in many cases, practices need to ensure more transparent and inclusive participation in cases of land transfers,” the rebuttal stated.

Impetus from below

The degree to which these safeguards are followed nevertheless remains voluntary, said Anuradha Mittal, the executive director of the Oakland Institute, a U.S.-based think tank that has been at the forefront of recent civil society warnings about the effects of land speculation in the developing world.

“Back in 2009 and 2010, we were clearly identifying the role that the World Bank Group has been playing in promoting and facilitating these large-scale investments, completely ignoring the social and economic impact,” she told IPS, referring to two reports (available here and here) that the new Oxfam work builds upon.

“Oxfam is reiterating that this kind of investment is misinvestment in communities, in agriculture, and unfortunately the bank is choosing to ignore the clear evidence that has been brought forward.” Bank officials did not respond to requests for additional comment.

Mittal said that the development discussion needs to focus less on prescriptions handed down from multilaterals and more on the national implementation of internationally agreed rights including the rights to food and to free and prior informed consent.

“We’re not interested in voluntary guidelines coming from Washington or Geneva, but rather in strengthening local and national capacities that help communities work best themselves,” she said. “Each country in Africa, for instance, is in a unique situation. So what we need are real consultations at the local level to see what kind of development actually works for the local populations.”

While Oxfam had called on the World Bank to move to halt its involvement in land deals before the annual meetings between the bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in Tokyo next week, the bank’s new president is now suggesting that he will use the meetings to begin pushing substantial reforms aimed at holding the bank’s anti-poverty approaches more to account.

“If we are going to be really serious about ending poverty earlier than currently projected…there are going to have to be some changes in the way we run the institution,” World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, preparing to attend his first annual meetings, told journalists on Thursday.

Kim said he would be pushing for a model “where our board and our governors focus much more on holding us accountable for results on the ground in countries, rather than focusing so much on approval of large loans”.

World Bank Land Grab
POSTED: 10/07/2012
EDITOR: Juan Wilson
SOURCE: Elaine Dunbar (inunyabus@gmail.com)
SUBHEAD: World Bank involved with massive predatory land deals in developing world, particularly Africa.

By Carey L. Biron on 7 October 2012 for Nation of Change –
(http://www.nationofchange.org/world-bank-refuses-call-halt-land-deals-1349620014)

[image]: African women on a small farm serving local markets. From original article.

Source’s note: Note the push worldwide land speculation by First World on local indigenous Third World peoples. I think this is the big picture. PLDC is one of the small specks. And Agenda 21 is another one of the specks]

Over the past year, aid agencies, local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and development watchdogs have warned that international investors are increasingly engaging in massive and sometimes predatory land deals in the developing world, particularly in Africa.

The World Bank has rejected a call to suspend its involvement in large scale agricultural land acquisition following the release of a major report by the international aid agency Oxfam on the negative impact of international land speculation in developing countries.

“We share the concerns Oxfam raised in their report,” the bank stated in an unusually lengthy public rebuttal to the Oxfam Report. “However, we disagree with Oxfam’s call for a moratorium on World Bank Group…investments in land intensive large-scale agricultural enterprises, especially during a time of rapidly rising global food prices.”

“A moratorium focused on the Bank Group targets precisely those stakeholders doing the most to improve practices – progressive governments, investors, and us. Taking such a step would do nothing to help reduce the instances of abusive practices and would likely deter responsible investors willing to apply our high standards,” the rebuttal said.

Over the past year, aid agencies, local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and development watchdogs have warned that international investors are increasingly engaging in massive and sometimes predatory land deals in the developing world, particularly in Africa. These acquisitions are partly to blame for rising food insecurity.

Food prices are once again nearing record highs. In late August, the World Bank warned that due to adverse weather in parts of Europe and the United States, the global cost of certain staple crops was approaching levels last seen in 2008.

Ironically, multinational companies interested in growing food crops to address this need have been doing much of the recent investing. According to Oxfam, however, two-thirds of the investments made between 2000 and 2010 were exclusively for export-oriented crops, while other lands are being used to meet the increasing international demand for biofuels.

“Already an area of land the size of London is being sold to foreign investors every six days in poor countries,” Oxfam stated, noting that in Liberia, land deals have “swallowed up” 30 percent of the country over the past five years.

Most news sources are funded by corporations and investors. Their goal is to drive people to advertisers while pushing the corporate agenda. NationofChange is a 501(c)3 organization funded almost 100% from its readers–you! Our only accountability is to the public. Click here to make a generous donation.

The report did not reject what good can potentially result from private investment but warned that food-price spikes from 2008 to 2009 led to the tripling of land deals, as “land was increasingly viewed as a profitable investment” even though it largely failed to benefit local communities.

Slow the speculation

“The world is facing an unbridled land rush that is exposing poor people to hunger, violence and the threat of a lifetime in poverty. The World Bank is in a unique position to stop this,” Jeremy Hobbs, Oxfam’s executive director, said Thursday, noting that the bank both invests in land and advises developing countries.

Oxfam is calling on the World Bank to temporarily halt its investments in agricultural land to give it time to review the advice it offers developing countries, and to put in place stronger policies to slow or stop the speculation and “land-grabbing” projects in which it is said to be involved.

World Bank investment in agriculture has reportedly tripled in the past decade. Since 2008, however, local communities have also brought 21 formal complaints against bank-funded projects that they say have violated their rights.

In a way, the bank’s response to the call for a moratorium demonstrated outright denial: “The Bank Group does not support speculative land investments or acquisitions which take advantage of weak institutions in developing countries or which disregard principles of responsible agricultural investment.”

The bank also noted that 90 percent of its agricultural investment is focused on smallholders, and that the agricultural work of its private-sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), has provided 37,000 jobs. By 2050, it warned, the global population is set to grow by two billion people, requiring a 70 percent increase in global food production.

Still, the bank recognized that its massive systems are imperfect and highlighted an upcoming overhaul of related guidelines that would “review and update its environmental and social safeguards policies”.

“We agree that instances of abuse do exist, particularly in countries where governance is weak, and we share Oxfam’s belief that in many cases, practices need to ensure more transparent and inclusive participation in cases of land transfers,” the rebuttal stated.

Impetus from below

The degree to which these safeguards are followed nevertheless remains voluntary, said Anuradha Mittal, the executive director of the Oakland Institute, a U.S.-based think tank that has been at the forefront of recent civil society warnings about the effects of land speculation in the developing world.

“Back in 2009 and 2010, we were clearly identifying the role that the World Bank Group has been playing in promoting and facilitating these large-scale investments, completely ignoring the social and economic impact,” she told IPS, referring to two reports (available here and here) that the new Oxfam work builds upon.

“Oxfam is reiterating that this kind of investment is misinvestment in communities, in agriculture, and unfortunately the bank is choosing to ignore the clear evidence that has been brought forward.” Bank officials did not respond to requests for additional comment.

Mittal said that the development discussion needs to focus less on prescriptions handed down from multilaterals and more on the national implementation of internationally agreed rights including the rights to food and to free and prior informed consent.

“We’re not interested in voluntary guidelines coming from Washington or Geneva, but rather in strengthening local and national capacities that help communities work best themselves,” she said. “Each country in Africa, for instance, is in a unique situation. So what we need are real consultations at the local level to see what kind of development actually works for the local populations.”

While Oxfam had called on the World Bank to move to halt its involvement in land deals before the annual meetings between the bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in Tokyo next week, the bank’s new president is now suggesting that he will use the meetings to begin pushing substantial reforms aimed at holding the bank’s anti-poverty approaches more to account.

“If we are going to be really serious about ending poverty earlier than currently projected…there are going to have to be some changes in the way we run the institution,” World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, preparing to attend his first annual meetings, told journalists on Thursday.

Kim said he would be pushing for a model “where our board and our governors focus much more on holding us accountable for results on the ground in countries, rather than focusing so much on approval of large loans”.

Kenya: Awendo parliamentary candidate says he will fight for the sugarcane farmers to get better return for their sweat if voted in as the area’s next MP

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Writes Bob Ndira-Uradi In Awendo Town

A Parliamentary aspirant in the newly created Awendo parliamentary electoral constituency has pledged that he would struggle hard to ensure that the much exploited sugar cane farmers get the better return for their crops.

He will work hand in hand with the Provincial Administration and to ensure police authorities in a joint concerted effort to get rid of cattle rustling, thuggery and insecurity in the small farming town of Awendo and it environs..

Joseph Otieno Owuor who is billed to be in the forefront of beating his rivals and a possible favorite of the electorate in the forthcoming contest the in the new constituency which was recently curved out of the old Rongo constituency said sugar cane farmers working within the sugar cane growing zones of the Awendo-based SonySugar company have a bone to chew with the management the facility.

He accused SonySugar for having made the unilateral decision to reducing the cane prices from K.shs 4.800 per ton to Kshs 3,800 per ton arguing this radical reduction would seriously hurt the cane growers economically.

SonySugar management made such drastic decision without consultation with the stakeholders, who is in this context are the cane farmers in the region. The reduction has negative impact on the income of the farmers.

The move is viewed as one way of impoverishing the cane growers, taking into account the current exorbitant prices of farm inputs. The cane growers still faces extra costs, including the costs of harvesting an transportation from the field to the factory which leaves them with only a peanut payment for their cane bills.

Owuor was speaking during an exclusive interview with this writer at his rural home near Dede market in Central Sakwa Location, Awendo district within Migori County. He said poverty index I the area remained high despite of high circulation of money in the areas as a result of sugar cane farming, production of made sugar and its sales by SonySugar, and something must be done to arrest the situation before it got out of hand

Owuor who is currently serving the Minister for public Services Dalmas Otieno as his Personal Assistant {PA} said members of the farming fraternity in the Awendo cane growing zones have a lot of grievances to complaint about, and which must be addressed urgently.

The farmer’s complaints are genuine and need to be addressed, taking into account that farm input such as fertilizers, labor and other overheads

“The costs of harvesting and transportation have also gone up threefold, exposing the cane farmers to a lot of suffering. Some of them could not adequately feed their family and at the some time pay school fees for their school-going children, hence the need for the prices of raw cane to e o the upward trend all the time.,” said Owuor.

Touching on the rate of crime waves in the region Owuor said this has impacted negatively on the business community in Awendo town and traders in the outlaying marketplaces.

The problem, he added, has come about because of the recent influx of so many people into the small farming town of Awendo and its environs. These people have come from all over Nyanza Province and beyond in search of green pasture and business opportunities, but some of them are suspected as having dangerous past criminal records and needed some kind of vetting by the local chiefs and police before they were readily allowed to access rental houses in Awendo town which they are using as hideouts while executing their heinous crimes.

Owwor scathingly criticized Awendo zonal director who represented the zone in the Kenya Sugar Board for working in isolation without effectively engaging the management of the Awendo-based SonySugar Company into a dialogue on various issues and problems affecting the cane farmers.

The KSB director for Awendo zone is Zachariah Okoth Obado who’s working relations with top manger of SonySugar Company is reportedly not very cordial.”The area KSB director is not serving the best interest of the farmers.

Owuor appealed to youth and women to register s voters in their thousands when the exercise started. This, he said, is the only way of ensuring that they voted for the ODM leader Raila Odinga to realize his presidential ambition and also to ensure that the party secure good number of MPs in the next parliament.

He said by registering in large number as voters the residents of Awendo district and Migori County would give the ODM a comfortable victory at the next polls,” The Wananchi must also ensure they enrolled as party paid up members to facilitate their active participation I the day to day activities of ODM in their localities.’

Owuor urged the ODM leadership to soldier on with the votes hunting campaign while ignoring the activities of political turn-coats and party hoppers who have fled fro the party in search of green pasture in other parties hoping to lay their hands in the campaign resources which is said to be in abundance and unlimited supplies plus ill-gotten drugs money included.

Owuor who is facing three other aspirants vying or the same seat is believed to be somehow much experienced in public affairs, having gained a lot of experience during his services with Dalmas Otieno, which has exposed him to access the operations of the government system works, while most of his rivals for the same seat are said to be green horns.

Ends


photo of Joseph Owuor an aspirant for the Awendio parliamentary seat on

USA: Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use

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From: Yona Maro

Genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant and insect-resistant crops have been remarkable commercial successes in the United States. Few independent studies have calculated their impacts on pesticide use per hectare or overall pesticide use, or taken into account the impact of rapidly spreading glyphosate-resistant weeds.

http://allafrica.com/download/resource/main/main/idatcs/00041893:d7f3ec2c246deae9d77df401674e0d4a.pdf

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Pata nafasi mpya za Kazi www.kazibongo.blogspot.com
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Kenya: Sugar cane politics to dominate the electioneering campaign in the newly created Awendo constituency

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Writes Bob Ndira-Uradi in AwendoTown.

The battle line is drawn between the scores of candidates who have set their eyes on the newly created Awendo parliamentary constituency seat in Migori County.

This is one of the 80 extra parliamentary constituencies country-wide which were recently created by the Interim Electoral and Boundary Commission {IEBC} and endorsed by an act of parliament.

The new electoral constituency has already attracted four aspirants who have already declared their intention of vying for the seat.

The newly created constituency w hived out of the old and larger Rongo constituency. It is located in area whose residents represented people of diverse communal, clan and tribal background, making it to be true cosmopolitan constituency in the true sense of the word.

Furthermore, Awendo constituency is arguably the smallest among other parliamentary constituencies in the greater and larger Southern Nyanza region. Its economic mainstay rotate around sugar cane farming and the Awendo-based SONYSUGAR company, a wholly government owned brown sugar manufacturing mill

The newly created Awendo parliamentary era is the smallest constituency I the greater Southern Nyanza region covering only Awendo district, which ha no administrative Division.except Awendo town,

Its area of jurisdiction is covering only for administrative location, namely Sakwa West,Sakwa North, Sakwa North,Sakwa South and Sakwa Central an area in which Awendo town is included.

The inhabitant of this constituency which is a cosmopolitan constituency in the true sense of the word represents people of diverse tribal and communal backgrounds.

Resident of the constituency represents the indigenous Sakwa people, who are occupying most parts of the west and lower parts along the Kuja River, while the inhabitants of the upper parts comprises of Jo-Alego Kogelo, Jochula who migrated from Rusinga Island in Suba region,

There are also non-Luos like the Luhyias, Maragolis, Kisiis,Somalis and immigrants from other major Luo locations like Nyakach, Kachuonyo,Uyoma,Asembo and Kano.

Owing to the areas proximity to the borders, cattle rustling business has refused to go away in this particular district ever since the country attained its political independence. These rustling. It borers the nomadic communities like the Maasais, Kurias who believe in cattle rustling as part of their cultural behaviors. Also the other neighbors are the Kisiis who are relatively much more civilized farmers. Cattle rustling have been a real menace to the residents, taking into account hat rustlers were now using sophisticated modern weapons like guns when executing their heinous crimes, resulting in deaths.

Amongst the individual political personalities who declared their interests in the new seat includes John Otieno Owuor, a Nairobi University graduate, who is currently working as the Personal Asistant[PA} to the Minister for Public Services Dalmas Oieno, who is also the incumbent Rongo MP.

Owuor is considered to be highly experienced in public service because before he joined the staff of the Minister, he was involved in the work with NGO and had initiated development projects of the infrastructure such as Schoos, medicare,women and youth groups.

Owuor is also credited for having been linked to the acquisition of school buses for several secondary shoos in Awendo, one of them being Manyatta Secondary School.

His work with the Minister has brought him close to the electorate in both Rongo and Awendo district and if he is to use his contacts with the voters, he will be advantaged over his rivals.

Another aspirant is Jude Michael Ayieko a former senior official with KRA who resigned his lucrative job with the government in order to contest the Awendo seat. He hails from near Pe-Hill Secondary School in Sakwa East Location.

Also in the race is the Principal of Gamba High School in Sakwa West Fred Otieno Kopiyo who will also square it up with Eric Oyoo who hails from Sakwa West and currently working it an NGO in Nairobi.

The former MP for Rongo George Ochillo-Ayacko who was expected to give the new entrants a run for their money is reported not to be in the race and that he has shifted his interests elsewhere, though he has yet to make his stands known to the electorate.

The creation of the Awendo constituency has now brought to abrupt end the bloody and violent campaign pitting the supporters of the two political giants in the region.

The two are now placed in different constit8encies with Dalmas Otieno remaining in the old Rongo constituency while Ochillo-Ayacko is in Awendo constituency. The list of aspirants may not be the final one, because the rumor making the round in Awendo and its environs say more aspirants are expected to join the race within the next few weeks.

The prices of raw cane is likely to dominate the campaign with each of the aspirants articulating how he will have the farmers in the region served better. There are numerous complaints against the management of the Awendo based SONYSUGAR with allegations of poor relations with the cane farmers.

The company, which is wholly owned by the government has recently unilaterally reduced the cane price from Kshs 4,800 per ton fro Kshs 3,800 per ton The farmers are complaining that they were not involved in the decision.

The other issues include the on-going cut-throat competition and scrambling over the scarce raw cane between the SONYSUGAR and two newly established sugar mills. On of the new mills is located near Oria market on the Ndhiwa side of River Kuja. The second one is Sukari Industries are reportedly giving SONYSUGAR hard times by way of unlawfully harvesting the cane which were developed with SONYSUGAR money..

Ends

KENYA: THE KAKAMEGA MILESTONE COURT RULING ON SUGAR HARVESTING ZONE DISPUTES WILL BRING SANITY AMONG THE VIOLENTLY SCRAMBLING MILLERS OVER THE SCARCE RAW CANE

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From: Arrum Tidi
News Analysis By Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City

The High Court judgment in which the West Kenya Sugar Company on Tuesday this week lost in the round one the battle to control sugar cane crops harvesting in Busia County’s cane growing zone to the Mumias Sugar Company is expected to bring sanity within the sugar industry where millers have been reportedly violently scrambling and poaching for the scarce raw cane.

The High Court Judge within Mr Justice Said Chitambwe sitting in Kakamega Court dismissed with costs an application filed by West Kenya Sugar Company that sought to overturn the temporary orders obtained by Mumias Sugar Company.

Mumias Sugar Company got the injunction barring West Kenya Sugar Company from harvesting and ferrying sugar cane fro Busia cane growing zone on September 11,2012.

The orders also restrained West Kenya from operating a weigh-bridge within Mumias sugar belt, Busia zone is within Mumias sugar belt.

West Kenya which is located within Kakamega County had filed objections to the orders by Mumias Sugar.

There has been a spirited battle and scrambles for cane crops in the region following acute shortage of the same in the area.

These battles have led to loss of lives and destruction of properties. Tractors found conveying sugar cane to either factory have been set ablaze and crew savagely beaten up by hired goons and the millers engaged in war of attrition over raw materials.

The same problems have occurred in other sugar cane growing regions in both Nyanza and Western Provinces. In some places it has been a total war as the competing miller deployed short-cut methods to undercut their competitors.

The worse hit is the Awendo-based SONYSUGAR company following the recent commissioning of two newly established sugar mills, one of them the Sukari Industries which is situated at Oria Market right on the boundaries of Ndhiwa and Uriri districts.

THE new sugar mill, which is a medium size mill with low production capacity has no nucleus estate farm of its own on which to grow cane and ensure it is a float in business throughout the year. This mill depended entirely cane crops “poaching” cane from sonysugar growing zones in the region.

The Sonysugar which has been operation for over 30 year has its own nucleus estate farm of over 6000 hectares. It has contracted close to 27,000 out growers cane farmers in several districts in the region which included Migori, Awendo, Rongo, Gucha, Uriri, Trans-Mara West, Kuria, and Homa-Bay. It has similar number of non-contracted cane farmers and almost the same number of non-contracted farmers. And sonysugar has also spent millions in shillings in financing its out grower farmers in land preparation, supplies of cane seedlings, cultivation and other good cane husbandry supports.

The Sukari Industries, however, has yet to envisage immediate plan of supporting out grower cane farmer in its Ndhiwa district zone in order to alleviate its perennial raw material supplies problem, and it appears as if the war of attrition and scrambling or the scarce cane would continue for some unforeseeable future.

Moreover the Sukari Industries sugar mill was established close to SonySugar company in flagrant and total defiance of the rules and regulation set up by he Kenya Sugar Board, which stipulates that anyone intending o invest in new sugar factory should ensure that the new facility is set up in a distance of not less than 40 kilometers away from the existing sugar

Owing to the unconfirmed allegation members of the KSB corruptively and hurriedly approved and licensed the new factory against the board’s own laid down rules of cane growing zoning, leaving the mills to fend for themselves hence the source of discontent and rampant poaching of raw cane.

The police and the provincial administration in Migori County appeared to be of no much help, perhaps having been compromised, taking into account that the investors in the to new mills are Asian tycoons.

The distance between SonySugar at the Trans-Mara Sugar Company, which is also owed by Asian investors is about 15 kilometers. Similarly this mill also has no nucleus estate farm of its own and depended entirely on crops planted and developed with SonySugar money and has been harvesting these cane with impunity, depriving the Awendo Mill of its cash which it has used in financing the cane development in the farms allocated along the Migori Narok Counties boundaries.

It is high time the government get involved practically by forcing official demarcation exercises and allocating each sugar mill its own clearly marked cane growing zone in order to bring to an end harvesting zones for each sugar factory.

In the Nyanza sugar belt covering Kisumu and Nyando districts where four sugar mills are operating, the situation is no different fro that facing SonySugar in Southern Nyanza.

The four sugar mills included Miwani Sugar Mills, Kibos Sugar and Allie Industries at Kibos, Chemelil Sugar Company at Chemelil and Muhoroni Sugar Mills based at Muhoroni town.

Out of the four mills, Miwani and Muhoroni is operational, but in a small scale the two facilities went burst ten years ago due to their inability to servicing debs running into billion of shillings Miwani has remained closed while Muhoroni is still operating in a small scale under the official receivership management.

With Chemelil company,which used to be the center of excellence in the sugar industry sub-sector on its death bed, the prospect of Kenya experiencing acute shortage of sugar in the near future cannot be ruled out.

The problem at Chemelil has just came about as the result of the prevalent cut-throat competition over raw sugar cane.The company has been crushing cane below its capacities for close to one year forcing the mill to be operational only thrice or twice a week.

It all started when the Kenya sugar Board approved and licensed the Kibos Sugar and Allied Industries at Kibos near Kisumu without properly assessing it source of cane supplies. The Mill has since then constructed a weigh-bridge at Awasi where it is receiving cane destined for Chemelil and Muhoroni Sugar Mills, which is only eight kilometers away from Awasi.The Awasi weigh-bridge has also the negative effect on the cane supplies to Muhoroni Sugar.

The Kibos Sugar and Allied Industries has also established another weigh-bridge at Chepsweta or near Kibigori where it is also receiving raw cane from the Nandi Escarpment which were previously going to Chemelil and those coming from Miwni zone, though Miwani is long close down, the cut-throat exercise is not good for long term planning or the continuation of cane supplies to the mills within Nyanza sugar belt the mills were only allowed to undercut one another.

The government must come out with a clear-cut sorts of policy guideline to impose sanity in the important sugar industry on which millions of Kenyans depended on fr their livelihood.

Claims, speculations and rumors are also abound with allegation of poor weighing system at the sugar mills operated by Asian investors where unsuspecting and illiterate and poor African farmers are allegedly losing millions on technically faulty weigh and measures at the factories weighbridges.

Members of the sugar cane farming fraternity are placing the blame squarely at the doorsteps of the elected members of Parliament [MPS} representing sugar cane growing constituencies for the inability to articulating the farmers problems. Some of the MP it is being alleged have joined the league with Asian millers and investors who are exploiting the cane farmers to the maximum.

Ends

KENYA: REPORTS SAY CHEMELIL SUGAR COMPANY IS INSOLVENT AND IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF WEEKS AND DAYS BEFORE THE FIRM IS PLACED UNDER THE OFFICIAL RECEIVERSHIP

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Writes Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City.

Chemelil sugar company in Muhoroni district within the in Kisumu County within the Nyanza sugar belt is on the verge of total collapse.

It has yet to pay its workers of their salaries for the month of August, 2012, the company owed its suppliers millions of shillings of unpaid bills. Only unionized workers were paid something a small fraction of their salaries for the month of August on fear that they could go on strike and cause havoc with the company’s properties.

Management staff and other workers received Kshs 1,500 each to keep them a float. The company has yet to pay the cane suppliers ever since April this year. The same is with the transporters.

An insider told this writer that Chemelil Sugar owed the Kenya Revenue Authority {KRA} a colossal amount of money estimated to be in excess of Kshs 600 million. It has yet to remit the power bill which is also said to be running into millions shillings.

A private firm contracted for cleaning the company’s compound ad factory is owed Kshs 50, million in arrears and is said to be just about to walk out of the firm.

Chemelil Sugar Company, which for many years was known to be the center of excellence and a roll model in the ailing sugar industry has sunk went down on its knees to an extent that cane farmers within its sugar cane growing zone have now boycotted delivery of raw material at its factory.

They prefer making direct delivery of their cane crops to the neighboring Muhoroni Sugar Mills and Kibos Sugar and Allied industries in Kibos near Kisumu.

A member of the board of director of the Chemelil Sugar Company, a wholly-government owned firm who had requested that his name should not be mentioned said explicitly that he company went burst several months ago, but it is only waiting for the arrival of the official receivers.

The company’s cane yard is empty with not even one single tractor queuing for the delivery space as it used to be before. The situation was described by one disappointed cane farmer as the most pathetic he has ever come across ever since the company inception in 1966.

Other reports say that the Kenya Sugar Board, which is the regulating authority in the sugar sub-sector of the economy is just about to disburse a colossal amount of money estimated at the tune of Kshs 470 million to the management of the Chemelil Sugar Company for its annual mechanical maintenance and further Kshs70 million to offset its payment arrears to the cane suppliers.

Members of the farming fraternity, however, have appealed to the government and the KSB not to disburse cash money to management of the Chemelil Sugar company but instead to hire and contract consultants and experts to carry out the annual maintenance work and pay the consultants their money directly fearing the same could be vandalized and embezzled the same way the firms coffers has been drained dry.

The KSB is as blamed over its choice and appointment of the managers in the public owned firms in the sugar industry. The farmers have also called for the Ministry of Agriculture to appoint external auditors to carry out forensic auditing of the company books of account.

The farmers have also appealed to the head of the inspectorate of the pubic corporation together with the Head of Public and Secretary to the cabinet to move with speed to ensure sanity is restored within the management of Chemelil Sugar Company.

As the company’s sugar production come to halt, the lives of close to 20,000 contracted and non-contracted farmers operating within the company’s sugar cane growing zones are doomed and facing a total ruins.

Although the three weeks teachers strike has come to an end, and pupils are back to school, the farming fraternity within Chemelil zone are facing myriad of problem not to be able to pay fees or their school going children having gone for close to five calendar months without receiving their cane bills.

Interviewed farmers have demanded for the immediate dissolution of the board of directors at the Chemelil Sugar Company and its replacement with qualified individuals who could turn the company around.

The popular rumors making the round within the industry is that some of the KDB directors need to have their activities put on heck. Some of the board directors are said to be in hurry of getting rich quickly and cold be collaborating with top managers in vandalizing the resources within the sugar industry. A contingent machinery of vetting the appointment of KSB directors should be done on an equal term to those of managing directors so as to avoid embarrassing situation similar to the on-going situation at Chemelil sugar company.

The closing don o this important facility would see the sharp rising in the poverty index within the Nyando,South Nandi, Lower Belgut and Muhoroni districts. A visit at the usually busy Chemelil Market at the round-about trading center witnessed those previously heavily stocked shops and stores having empty shelves. Similar phenomenon is being experienced in Kopere, Awasi and even far field at Ahero. If Chemelil goes into official receivership the number of sugar miller in official receiver would be increased to four. Both Miwani Sugar Mills are currently under the official receivership with Miwani having been closed down ten years ago.

The Managing Director of the Chemelil sugar chares Owelle could not be reached for his immediate his immediate comment the chair person of the board of director who is understood to e a lady-lawyer.

Ends

Private Investment in Agriculture: Why it’s essential, and what’s needed

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From: Yona Maro

Massive investment in agriculture is desperately needed to help fix the broken food system. Private sector investment can play a vital role in delivering inclusive economic growth, environmental sustainability and poverty reduction. However, in order to do so, it must be adequately regulated and should adhere to some key principles, such as focusing on local food markets, working with producer organisations and respecting the rights of small-scale producers, workers and communities.
http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/private-investment-in-agriculture-why-its-essential-and-whats-needed-245671
—
Karibu Jukwaa la www.mwanabidii.com
Pata nafasi mpya za Kazi www.kazibongo.blogspot.com
Blogu ya Habari na Picha www.patahabari.blogspot.com

Environmental Effects of Genetically Modified Food Crops — Recent Experiences

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From: Leila Abdul

—
Karibu Jukwaa la www.mwanabidii.com
Pata nafasi mpya za Kazi www.kazibongo.blogspot.com
Blogu ya Habari na Picha www.patahabari.blogspot.com

– – – – – – – – – – –

Margaret Mellon, Ph.D., J.D.
Jane Rissler, Ph.D.
Union of Concerned Scientists

. . .

In the United States, the nascent agricultural industry emerged in the early 1980s—a product of two decades of dramatic advances in molecular biology research. As it became clear that the industry was contemplating a broad variety of products, including many that would be used out of doors, the Reagan administration began to grapple with questions of regulatory oversight. Even though it tended to resist regulation as a general matter, the Reagan administration eventually decided to fashion a new “regulatory framework” made up of old statutes. It explicitly rejected the option of new regulatory legislation targeted to biotechnology products, at least in part because administration policy was premised on the similarity of biotechnology to earlier reproductive technologies.

[ . . . ]

http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/impacts_genetic_engineering/environmental-effects-of.html

KENYA: THE CURRENT DISTURBING DEBATE IN PARLIAMENT ON FORMULATION OF NEW POLICY ON THE SUGAR INDUSTRY MIGHT NOT OFFER THE LASTING SOLUTION,

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Business News Analysis By leo Odera Omolo

There are disturbing actions and events in the current debate in parliament that point to a business as usual approach to formulating Sugar Industry policy and reviewing policy gaps which have constrained the industry.

For a start, one hopes that the debate is informed by the provisions in the new constitution that transferred responsibility for Agricultural production, processing and marketing to county governments.

Secondly, the current review and consolidation of agricultural sector agencies in research, marketing and regulation as approved by cabinet and pending in parliament should inform the debate on the bill.

The recent events and performance of the industry exemplified by violence in Western sugar belt is a testimony to the failure of the privatization model in the sugar sector. Indeed Mumias the test case for privatization of a public owned sugar is barely surviving, devoting too much energy fighting off leeches stealing its cane investment in name of private sugar mills.

The industry is now in private hands with 6 private mills of Butali, Mumias, West Kenya, Kibos, Sukari and Transmara against 3 public owned mills of Nzoia, Chemelil and Sonysugar yet industry insiders and Kenya sugar board(KSB) statistics depict the public owned mills as more efficient and only units having invested in sugarcane growing.

New private mills are of economically un sustainable sizes of below are all rated below 2000 tons per day. The government was duped in allowing second hand equipment from shut down mills dismantled and relocated to Kenya yet exploiting the tax credit on investments.

This explains the reason behind the engagement of private mills such as Kibos, Sukari, Transmara, Butali in cane poaching as a survival strategy yet calling themselves investors! West Kenya mill never invested in sugar cane hence its resorting to cane poaching on entry of Butali!
The industry institutional framework is weak and support for R & D is poor. KSB spends over 33% of levy on sugar on administration and gives a mealy sum to KESREF for R & D. The institutions KESMA and KESGA representing millers and farmers respectively are moribund! Its a fallacy to assume all is well with respect to farmer representation in KSB.

The present duplicity in farmer representation in KSB through KESGA in sugarcane pricing and by directly elected farmer directors has caused governance accountability challenges and has been exploited by politicians. Farmers lack cooperatives to mobilize resources and collectively bargain in the market with millers.

All out grower companies formed on instigation of previous KSB management under Mr Chahonyo have all collapsed or are in receivership with hugh debts owed to KSB.

From the foregoing one can see that the debate in parliament is largely uninformed and has no input from a wider stake holder framework.

Its therefore logical to conclude that the outcome by way of a revised Sugar act will not solve the myriad industry challenges. Its a pity the farmers lack an impartial voice hence their interests will be auctioned by partisan interests!

Ends

Kenya: Six fishermen die in Lake Victoria after hippo attack in which they drowned

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SIX FISHERMEN DIE IN LAKE VICTORIA FOLLOWING ATTACK BY A ROGUE BULL OF HIPPO AS THE BEAST OVERTURNED THEIR BOAT UPSIDE DOWN.

Writes Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu city.

A small fishing Goye village in Yimbo Location,Usenge Division,in Bondo district was yesterday in mourning mood after six young fishermen from the village drowned and perished on Monday morning following an attack by a rogue bull of hippopotamus.

Four of the fishermen survived and were rescued. The incident occurred on Monday morning in their home-made canoe when they encountered the beast. It overturned the boat upside down spilling the ten men occupying into the deep water.

The four managed to swim and clung on the overturned boats for several hours. they were later rescued by the crew of another boat and taken ashore to Usenge Beach fishing landing site. Local rescuers had retrieved only one the body of the victims but by Tuesday after five bodies were still yet to be recovered and the search was continuing.

The incident came only hours after close to 100 fishermen who were marooned inside the lake for three days after their path to the shore was blocked by huge water hyacinth weeds for more than twenty four hours were rescued alive and taken to safety.

The incident took place in Rachuonyo North district where dozens of boats carrying close to 100 fishermen were marooned inside the deep water part of Lake Victoria. The rescue was successful following a joint combined effort Kenya Wildlife Service helicopter and the Provincial Administration in Nyanza Province.

Reports emerging from Bondo say the ten men were fishing in the morning when their boat encountered a huge of a rogue bull of hippo that attacked them and overturned their boat.

The area Chie Daniel Tiang’was quoted as saying that the four survivors had lung on to the overturned boat and signaled for help. By the time the help and assistance came, the six had already drowned.

By y the time of writing this report, Bondo police chief said he had yet to receive the report, but promised to dispatch a team of policemen to the scene of the incident t find pout what had gone wrong.

However, the area civic leader Councilor Agrey Dimo decried the increase incidents of hippos attacking and killing his people unabated.

He appealed to the official s of the Kenya Wildlife Service to control the population of hippos in the area to avoid more deaths.

He alleged that thirty people have been killed in hippo attack in a span of three months. The figure of the alleged victims of hippo attack could not be immediately confirmed with both the police and members of the Provincial Administration within Siaya County. However, observers were in total agreement with the civic leader that the number of incidents of attack and killing by hippos have increased I the recent past.

In the neighboring Mbita district in Homa-Bay County, the residents of Rusinga Island have lost five of their loved ones within last year and early this as the results of hippo attacks.

One knowledgeable and long time resident of Rusinga Island narrated t this writer that hippos had no history of harming people quite often. But he attributed the increases of hippo attacks on human being saying it could be attributed to the lost of green pasture and grass along he lake shorelines and weeds also the lake shore to which the hippos feeds too. They are hungry and liked the weeds and grass on which they feed on. One five ton hippo can feed on between one and two tons of grass per day in the normal circumstances. But due top over farming along the lake’s shorelines these docile and heavily built animals are no longer feeding well and hence sudden change of their temperament.

The only incident whereby the hippos can attack human being is when the female that is nursing a male calf which must be hidden to the dominant male father up t it obtain enough strength to fight the father o some time these animals are so destructive in destroying maize or sorghum millets farms that is next to the lake sore. in such a cases a dominant male hippo if provoked by a farmer guarding his farm can urn hostile an attack. But these are rare cases,” he, added.

The incident only came one day after close to 100 fishermen who were marooned inside Lake Vitoria without water and food for three days were rescued by the government using helicopters.

The fishermen had their path back to the fish landing beaches o the lake shorelines blocked by water hyacinth and weeds for three days without water and food were rescued.

The incident occurred in Karabondi Rambira location and Rakwaro Kamwala sub-location in Karachuonyo East location, in north Rachuonyo district within the County of Homa-Bay.

On of the fishermen who was among dozens of fishermen who rescued from the ordeal Joel Atieno Ogola narrated the three harrowing days which they were tapped for close to three days inside Lake Victoria.

He said most of the fishermen were from villages like Kotieno Gumba, Seka, Karabondi, Rakwaro Kamwla and Kogweno Kobala villages as well as around Kendu-Bay Pier. He said he and his team set for the lake on a fishing expedition last Thursday at about 4.30 P.M.

This was after the water hyacinth weed and cleared away from their beaches. Five hours into the lake waters, the previously calm weather was interrupted all of a sudden by a strong winds and storm that triggered panic among his boat’s crew.

Ogola explained that it was like the scenes and situation similar to those seen in the movies. Suddenly we could see from the dim moonlight that were being marooned by the weed that was being blown from both sides.

From that moment, everything turned dark because of the rains that rapidly increased every minute had also started drenching them.

‘All that they could to is to get anything that could protect them fro the rains,” said another fisherman Sam Okoth. When dawn on the next morning and there was enough light, they realized that they had been driven into the deep part and middle of the lake by the storm.

Okoth and his team were shocked to discover they wee not only in the deep part of the lake but they had also been encircled by the thick blanket of weeds,” he said.

They also discovered that they wee not alone in the lake after they counted about 30 boats and canoes which had between three and four fishermen aboard.

One of the fishermen in their boat had a mobile phone. They tried to use it in contacting the Beach Management Units, but the phone had run short of power and could not offer full conversation with the men on the beach. Crew of another boat had a working cellphone and managed to reach the men on the beach. In the middle of the same day, they D.C for Rachuonyo North and the Police chief arrive at camped at Rambira beach. But all of a sudden they saw a helicopter flying low over their heads. At an earlier attempt to raise the alarm for help they stood on the boat and used their jacket and shirts waving so that they cod catch the eyes o those n shoreline but I van.

The helicopter arrival was as the result of combined efforts by the Kenya Wild Life Services “{KWS}and the Provincial Administration. It was decided that energizing food and water be dropped to them as they were increasingly and rapidly become weaker and weaker.

After having been fed the helicopter dropped winch cable which pulled the boat up, but it got broken somewhere, and the gripped them.

It came when they were increasingly getting worried of the huge weeds, which moving also closing in because of the common stories that these weeds is the home habitat of big and dangerous snakes, and they fear had settled on their minds of possible attack, but noting e that happened.

Ogola denied the rumor that one fisherman man had died of exhaustion an hunger. He said they were only getting weaker, but thanks good all were rescued alive and heathy.

Ends

Kenya: No end to rogue contractors, as sugarcane farmers cry foul.

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By Reporter

Despite the recent signing into law, the National Construction Authority Act, by the president that seeks to regulate the building and construction industry by setting up the National Construction agency (NCA) to oversee the sector-charged with registering and accrediting contractors and regulating their activities, the move still appears to be an elusive task and far from being realized.

Sugarcane growers and residents of Kakamega County are up in arms over a Kisumu based contractor for having allegedly done shoddy work: for the construction of culverts which was meant to serve and facilitate cane farmers in accessing their huge chunks of farms, during the period of cultivation, harvesting and transportation of their canes.

Maurice Omondi of GOGNI RAJOPE group of companies headquartered in the lakeside city of Kisumu, and with branches in other major towns, who “won” the tender last year April through one of their sister companies,WADICH construction and engineering company, was tasked with the building of culverts of KWABA area to the tune of over Kshs 4.5 million.

And it was among the nine projects which also included the building of bridges and access roads in the western sugar belt funded by National Sugar Development Fund (NSDF), through Kenya Sugar Board (KSB).The projects kicked off June, same year.

Speaking to a legion of reporters, the angered farmers, who have vowed to take to the streets to protest against the contractor for non performance which has hampered their farming activities thus leading to hefty financial loses, are now questioning the criteria that was applied that earned Omondi and its company the tender and yet he doesn’t harbour the requisite technical prowess and monetary capacity to do a work, of such magnitude.

Threatening unspecified legal action if the relevant authorities fail to crack the whip, the fire spitting farmers now wants the NCA as an authority which is also tasked with promoting professionalism by ensuring that only trained contractors, construction workers, and site supervisors are registered, to invoke its act and blacklist him, saying the contractor is associated with a spate of dubious work in different parts of the country “We will soon move to court if the work is not redone and completed to our satisfaction” said the relentless farmers.

Ahead of court action, the enraged farmers and other stakeholders in the industry, are reportedly planning to lead a high-powered delegation to the ministries of agriculture and roads to petition Hon. Sally Kosgey and Franklin Bett respectively, to address their myriad grievances over the besieged contractor whom they say has been, not only eluding them, but also evading the taxman over alleged non-remittances of taxes amounting to millions of shillings, running to years.

In an earlier interview with some professional contractors, who are registered engineers and also members of Architectural Association of Kenya, read from the same script with the farmers and expressed their disgruntlement with the contractor whom they strongly loathed his works and behaviours saying that he is a perennial disgrace to their fraternity, worth deregistration, since he rarely honours his contractual obligations “we strongly concur with the farmers’ move, its long overdue” they said, demanding for thorough audit, into their umbrella body to weed out the quacks.

The Act states that, a person shall not carry out the duties of a contractor unless that person is registered by the board to be established under new law. In case of a firm registration can only be given if at least one of the partners or directors possesses the qualifications, technical skills, or experience prescribed by the board. The Act further states that any person who decides to operate as a contractor without registration “commits an offence and shall be liable to a fine not exceeding Sh 1million”, or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years.

Any contractor too found guilty of unprofessional misconduct will also face the same consequences. Failure also by the contractor to discharge duties, responsibilities and obligations shall have his or her names expunged from the register and shall not be registered afresh under any other new name.

Sources privy to the mother company, Gogni Rajope’ mode of operations, which also owns and runs CEABUD, RADO and HANRAJ among other chains of companies, revealed that procurement procedures were flouted with impunity during the tendering and subsequent award of the tender (read single sourcing).

That these outfits will hardly win any tender fairly and they ever, allegedly thrive on greasing the hands of the prospective procurement officials and tender board committees to land cream tenders, both locally and internationally. The art, which they say, have been indisputably perfected, per- excellence.

And in a bid to execute their well orchestrated clandestine deals in advance, they book state-of-the-art hotels, far away from the hawkeyed interested parties for the officials to put up, where the cartel covertly converges with them over special finger- licking foodstuff, to strategize on how to canvass, compromise and bag the contracts-pre or post the advertisement of the tender.

At the centre stage of this racket, that allegedly deprives other competent firms’ contracts unjustifiably, is the notorious Omondi of WADICH Company in question, who is assigned with nosing for the tenders, flapping and hawking the profiles of these companies.

And to achieve this effectively, all their bids, will always find their ways into the tender box, after the advertisements “to compete” for the awards, alongside other unsuspecting competent bidders (contractors), who only bided for one.

Something, that the contractor, when approached for verification, vehemently denied and instead advised this writer to go ahead and publish the story: “ You can go and write whatever you want I don’t bother whether you are president or prime minister” He yelled, waving cigarette stick and directing smoke, to a battery of journalists.

And a spot check at the site of the work, confirms some of the allegations since the workmanship is very poor, yet to be fully done and it’s past the stipulated timeline, with the areas already “completed” dilapidating at alarming rate “He is ever drunk and rough even to us whenever we dare raise our concern over some poorly done areas” regretted some dozen of the hapless construction workers, glued at the site waiting for their meager dues, adding that he hardly pays.

Independent sources from KSB reliably averred that the contractor, out of the total fee earmarked for the tender, has been paid a whooping ksh 3.5million in two phases, with the deficit being over ksh 1million and yet the work done so far is not reflective.

Owing to the unfolding dossier unmasking these outfits underworld activities, which flies in the face of the procurement rules, regulations and procedures, its also worth noting that the quintet companies which are now under spotlight, are currently engaged in a string of works across the country, further raising eyebrows whether they were awarded fairly or not.

According to knowledgeable inner sources, all the companies are the brainchild of one of the topnotch engineer who is said to be the proprietor and elder brother to the alleged cowboy contractor and, with a well networked syndicate buttressing across the boarders, hence according credence as to why they recently clinched a lucrative tender in southern Sudan for the construction of the road, among other plum jobs, to the chagrin of other potential lowest bidders.

The farmers move comes hot on the heels of the recent remaks, in some cross-section of the press, by the minister of public works Hon. Chris Obure that the NCA law will be implemented to the letter and, further read the riot act to the rogue contractors that the law will be slapped unto them, since their days are numbered.

The authority is also charged with, among other things, researching on any matter relating to the construction industry, promoting quality assurance as well as encouraging standardization and improvement of construction techniques and materials. It will also develop and publish a code of conduct for the industry.

Kenya: Tension is building up between three sugar mills in western Kenya following alarming theft of the scarce raw material for processing

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Special Report By Leo Odera Omolo In Awendo Town.

Tension is building up between the three white sugar factories located in Southern Nyanza following the reported rampant theft the scarce raw materials, namely harvested cane in the field by seemingly well organized cartel unscrupulous trader turned criminals.

Tension is between the well-and long established Awendo-based SonySugar Company, the newly established Sukari Industries based in Ndhiwa district, and also the recently commissioned Trans-Mara Sugar Company, based in Tans-Mara district in the South Rift region of the Rift Valley Province.

What had started as simple cane poaching between the three sugar mills has since developed to a full-scale war and calls for the government urgent intervention to bring the confrontation to an immediate end? It is generally feared that if the situation is allowed to continue as it is today, Kenya may soon experience another acute shortage of sugar.

The situation is so pathetic to an extent that it now threatening to disrupt peace as it has became a source of insecurity in the five administrative districts of Awendo, Migori,Rongo, Nhiwa and Trans-Mara.

Before the two new white sugar factories one in Ndhiwa and the other one in Trans-Mara, the long established SonySugar Company based at Awendo town had contacted thousands of out-grower cane farmers in close to seven distrcts. The out-grower farmers contracted by SonySugar are estimated to be numbering 27,000 with close to similar numbers of un-contracted cane farmers.

The company classified and clearly demarcated cane growing zones had extended to the neighboring districts of Gucha, Ndhiwa, Rongo, Trans-Mara, Migori, Kuria, Awendo and Uriri.

The planners at the Ministries of Agriculture and Planning also stand blamed fort having strictly adhered to the Kenya Sugar Board’s regulations, which stipulates that investors intending to construct a new sugar mill, must ensure that it is constructed at a distant not less than 40 kilometers from the existing sugar manufacturing plant.

In the case of Sukari Limited , which is located at Oria market on the border Nnhiwa and Urirri districts, it is only a distant of 10 kilometers , In such a short distances, the planners at the two ministries could have foresaw that the trouble where the two mills would scrambles for raw material was abound to occurred.

In the case of Trans-Mara Sugar Company, which is also located close to the Awedo-Migori and Kuria East district borders is only a stance of 15 kilometers from the Awendo-based SonySugar Company Limited Just.

It is being alleged that the two new sugar factories were hurriedly licensed by the KSB which is the regulating body in the sugar industries following heavy pressure mounted by corrupted KSB directors. Who are suspected to have been compromised and manipulated by the investors and made to ignore the existing rules governing the establishment of new sugar processing factories. This is what is now responsible for the now prevailing pathetic situation in Southern Nyanza.

One of the KSB directors representing farmers in Awendo,Rongo, Uriri sugar cane gro2ing zones, Zakariah Okoth Obado has been heard telling hundreds of mourners that there was nothing wrong done by the KSB in licensing the Sukari Limited within only ten kilometers of Awendo-based SonySugar cane growing zones.Before the two new factories were established SonySugr had contracted out thousands growers cane farmer in both Tans-Mara, Ndhiwa, Rongo, and Urirri district. In case of the Sukari Industries in Ndhiwa is established within the Zone “B” of SonySugar.

The KSB repeated the same mistake similar to the controversial licensing of the Butali Sugar Company, which is very close to the West Keya Sugar Company in Kakamega County Western Province, which has caused a protracted legal battles trough the courts for a long time as the two company scrambles for the scarce raw materials, the

The top management of the two new sugar factories have allowed their plants to be used as conduits in the massive theft of cane from the field by readily accepting the stolen cane crops into their mills for processing without making the slightest effort in finding their sources.of origins. Some of the stolen case crops belong to the small-scale poor out growers farmer in the region.

It is now not strange nor unusual for a farmer to part with thousands of shillings harvesting his over-mature cane crops and leaving it staked in the field while awaiting for the transportation to the mill the next day to wake up and found that the cane had already been packed and loaded on tactors during the wee hours of the night and transported to unknown destination.

It is now forcing both the out-growers farmers and the sugar mills to engage extra security guards to guard the already harvested cane in the feds the night. The raw cane crops thieving gangs are also reported to be heavily armed with sophisticated modern weapons possibly gun and arrow an spears while executing their theft mission of depriving the farmer the money from their sweats.

No credible investigation have been instituted by the police to unearth and possibly stamp out the rampant theft.

It is up to he government to protect the farmers and millers. Reports made to the police in Miori, Awendo, Rongo, Ndhiwa and other nearby police stations and police posts are usually igoredand not acted upon in time. Creating the rooms for speculations an unfounded allegations that top police bosses in those police divisions have been compromised were now acting a part of the massive and well organised theft of cane and irregular harvesting of cane farm developed by SonySugar by other mills.

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KENYA: THE SCRAMBLING OVER RAW SUGAR CANE WAR BETWEEN THE COMPETING MILLS HAVE INTENSIFIED IN MIGORI, URIRI, RONGO, NDHIWA AND AWENDO DISTRICTS.

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Writes Leo Odera Omolo

The raw involving the harvesting of mature sugar cane crops has intensified in Migori, Rono,Tans-Mara, Uriri, Ndhiwa and Awendo districts.

The competition over the aw cane is between the long established wholly-government owned SonySugar Company limited and the two newly established Sukari Industries in Ndhiwa and the Trans-Mara Sugar Company, which is located in Trans-Mara district in the South Rift region.

The three sugar manufacturing companies are currently engaged in cut-throat competition for sugarcane harvesting war, which is increasing causing insecurity in the regions.

Whereas the Awendo-based Sonysugar Company, which as been in the business in the area for close to 30 years has been working in liaison with local farmers in and preparation and cultivating and planting of cane in the plots owned by the small scale out-growers farmers.None of the two new sugar factories were has its own nucleus cane growing estate, whereas SonySugar in addition to supporting the local cane farmers has its own 6,000 hectare eneucus estate where it is growing its own cane for raw materials.

Before a sugar mill is established the investors or its owner must ensure they planed several acres of raw cane, either their own, or in collaboration with local growers to ensure that its operations is interrupted by acute shortage of raw cane. This was not in the case of several makeshift sugar mills recently established in Western Kenya and is the cause of the current life threatening cut-throat competition for the raw cane own being witnessed in Southern Nyanza.

A source at the Sonysugar company blames the Provnial Administration and the police authorities in Migori, Ndhiwa, Awendo, Rongo and Tans-Mara districts for complacency and laxity.

The source said numerous reports have been made to the police repeatedly, and it appears as if they have been compromised by the management of the news sugar mills who are blamed for accepting for crashing the raw cane suspected to have been stolen from SonySugar cane growing zones. The thieves don’t even spare the already harvested and staked cane left in the filed while awiting for transportation the next morning.

The alarming theft of raw cane has now forced Sony Sugar to engage extra night guards to keep vigil at all cane harvest fields. Such theft usually ends up in the close to disturbances of peace and tranquility and encourages lawlessness.

SonySugar it is moderately being estimated to have lost close to Ksh 100 million in the recent past throgh illegal theft of it raw cane in the field. The company apart from incurring losses by way of paying the harassing team is deploying day and night guards to guard cane in the field.

One senior Administration Police Officer who owns a popular public join at the nearby Ranen Market, which is only 6 kilometer from the SonySugar plan is susepected to be collaborating with criminal thugs suspecting of sealing the company’s raw cane from the field. Most of the suspects have be market.

OCPD in-charge charge of Migori, Rongo and Ndhwa Police Stations who have been scathingly criticized and adversely mentioned for not helping the situation could not be reached for their immediate comments the Migori , Uriri Awendo and and Rongo D.Cs.were also not available for comments.

One experts who is a player in the industry said in Awendo Town that if the situation is allowed to continue as its today, SonySugar will be forced to close down its business operations after incurring millions of shillings of liabilities through this kind of cut-throat competition.

The massive theft of cane in the field and unauthorized harvesting of immature cane crops is not only hurting sonysugar company economically, but the loses also is being spilt into the economic gains of the small scale cane growers.

The government through the Ministry of Agriculture, Provincial Administration and the police authorities should move with speed to ensure that the that the situation is harmonized.

The public servants who are suspected to have been compromised and not doing anything to arrest the situation should be transferred to other stations. Those who have served in the region for too long should be shown exit door.

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KENYA: IMMIGRATION AND REGISTRATION OF PERSONS MINISTRY FOR ALLEGEDLY RAMPANTLY AND CORRUPTLY ISSUING INDIAN AND PAKISTANI ALIENS WORKERS WITH THE WORK PERMITS AT THE EXPENSE OF LOCAL KENYAN WORKERS.

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Special Report By Bob Ndira-Uradi In Kisumu City.

SUGAR milling companies in Nyanza and Western Provinces have raised complaints alleging that the government through its immigration Ministry is engaged in recklessness of issuing unskilled aliens workers from India and Pakistan with the works permits at the expense f Kenyan worker

Hundreds of unskilled India and Pakistani workers have flooded the sugar factories in the regions, and are engaged in odd jobs such as cane-yard clerks, time-keepers, store-keepers, vehicles mechanics electrical mechanics, boiler-operators, office sweepers, messengers, time-keepers, cooks , welders and penal-beaters, fitters and plant mechanics.

Kenya is not short of these categories of workers after close to 50 years ever since the country attained its political independence in 1963. The country has trained skilled worker n these categories in excess of its labor fore needs.” Said a source a the Awendo-based SonySugar Company.

The CENTRAL Organization of Trade union of Kenya {cotu{k} is silent about this grave situation and appeared to have been compromised.

The outspoken COTU{K} Secretary-General who is also the General Secretary of the Kenya Plantations and Agricultural Workers Union is sleeping on the job and has uttered no word in complaints against this seemingly naked corrupt deals in which some sugar millers are known to be sourcing their worker from foreign sources with impunity against the laws of Kenya that is governing the sourcing f foreign workers.

The sugar mills which are currently flooded by foreign workers included the Ndhiwa based Sukari Industries, kakamega based Butali Sugar Mill, Western Kenya Sugar Company also based in Kakamega district, Kibos Sugar and Allied Industries based at Kibos near Kisumu City, Trans-Mara Sugar Company Limited, which is based in Trans-Mara district within Narok County.

Shortly before he met his untimely death in a helicopter crash in Ngong forest near Nairobi, The Internal Security Assistant Minister Joshua Orwa Ojode whose concerted effort is credited to have been an instrumental tool that yielded in the establishment of the Ndhiwa based Sugar Mills near Oria Market, is said to have warned the management of the Sukari Industry Limited, to remove about half of its Indian and Pakisani workers who are engaged on petty jobs which could be perfectly be performed well by the locals.

The Labor Ministry also stands blamed for not effectively inspecting the job specifications I the Sugar mill with he view o ensure that undesirable aliens were kicked out and their places taken over by local skills.

Unionized workers in the sugar industry tro8gh their union are also contemplating moving to court to have he foreign workers have their illegally and corruptively obtained work permits cancelled.

The workers lad the blames squarely on the MPS representing the sugar growing zones in both Nyanza an Western Provinces for allegedly having compromised and failing to articulate the workers sufferings to the government.

They included the MPs representing Mumias, Muhooni, Nyando, Rono, Uirii, Kiloris,IKOlOMANI, Bunyala, Matungu, and Butere.

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Kenya: The residents of South Rift Region are putting pressure upon Raila to appoint one of Kipsigis MPs to the cabinet

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Writes Leo Odera Omolo in Kericho Town

The popular rumor making the round in Kericho Town and its environs is pointing out to the direction that the Prime Minister Rila Odinga should urgently consider the possibility of reshuffling his ODM party side in the coalition government in order to create the room for one of his loyal lieutenants among the MPs from the Kipsigis community to be elevated into a full cabinet slot.

Such a move would work well in favor of the ODM and could restore the community back on the Prime Minister and repair the damage inflicted by the soured relations with the section of Kalenjin MPs.

The MP whose name is being aggressively mentioned as the one ho deserves such appointment id Dr. Joyce Laboso who represented the unusually volatile Sotik borderline constituency, which is separating the Kipsigis and the Abagusii of Borabu district.

Cattle rustling business is till thriving in this region causing insecurity as the hostilities between the two neighboring communities continued unabated.

The community wants Raila to promote the Kipkellion MP Magerer Lang’at to fill one of the vacant ministerial slots in the coalition. Lang’at is currently an Assistant Minister in the Ministry of Energy.

There is a strong suggestion that Laboso and Lang’at should be swabbed with Lang’at taking over the Ministry of Regional Development, which is currently held by the Westlands MP Fred Gumo who is also acting in the Ministry o Local Government. The local government portfolio was left vacant by the DPM Muslia Mudavadi who has since ditched the ODM and started his own UDF.

Laboso should fill the vacancy left by the late Joshua Orwa Ojode in the Ministry of Internal Security as an act of regional balancing.

The residents of the South rift region of the Rift valley province comprising of Kericho and Bomet counties also wants Raila Odinga to lift the suspension of the Minister for the Industrialization Henry Kosgey, arguing that his continued suspension is hurting ODM’s popularity in the Rift Valley, while the court case of the abuse of office is lingering within the courts for too long without the solution on sight.

Kosgey is the ODM party national chairman. He has remained steadfastly loyal to the party and its leadership despite of the fact that most of his Kalenjn fellow MPs from the Rift Valley have crossed over to other parties and joined the shaky and unpredictable URP of William Ruto

Another popular issue, which is rapidly winding its way into the public domain is the quest by the Road minister Franklin Bett, who is the Buret MP that he should be considered to be the running-mate of Rail Odinga in his presidential bid in 2013.

Residents say Bett has all that it takes to be a presidential running-mate ,having come from the votes rich Kipsigis land where the ODM could harvest as many votes as 2 million, he is the most suitable to be Raila’s number two in the impending presidential contest.

The statistics of the 2007 general elections indicated that members of the Kipsgis sub-tribe of the larger Kalenjin ethnic groups had casted as many vote as 1.3 million in nine parliamentary constituencies, namely Chepalungu, Kilgoris, Konoin, Buret, Sotik, Bomet, Belgut, Ainamoi, Kipkellion and Kuresoi in Molo.

ODM bagged nearly 100 per cent o votes casted in all eight constituencies in the Kipsigisland, and also in the two Diaspora based parliamentary electoral constituencies of Kuresoi and Kilgoris.

With the inclusion o youths who have acquired the new national identity cards for the new generation youths in the region which has since had two additional parliamentary seats as the result of the recent splitting o Belgut, and the creation of the new Sgowet, constituency, Kipkellion Eat and Kipkellion west, the provisional voting pattern which is being projected as likely to go up past 2 million marks.

Senior politicians in this region are up in arms demanding hat Raila Odinga should reward his loyal comrades by filling the vacant Ministerial slots in he government with members of the Kipsigis community.

At the same time the recent evens including hr locking out two prominent Kipsigis political personalities from representing Kenya as new MPs in he regional east African Legislative Assembly {EALA} allegedly sabotage by Ruto and Kalenjin MPs allied to the URP has dented the reputation and image of the Eldoret North mp William Ruto in this tea growing region.

Ruto’s popularity altogether with that of the fellow Kalenjin MPs allied to him from this region have suffered major political set-back and rekindled the old hostility between the Kipsigis and their closest cousins from the North Rift, the Nandis.

The two whose nominations to the EALA has has caused uproar in the region were he Bomet County councilor Donald N’eny {Tinget} who is a close political associate o Raila Odinga and the former Deputy Chief of the General Staff{who is the head of the UDM . The two were nominated by Raila Odinga’s ODM party. But Ruto and Kalenjn MPs allied to him made it known to the public that they were vehemently opposed to the appointment of the two as part of their well orchestrated grand plan of fighting Raila Odinga so that he could not succeed President Mwai Kibaki when the latter retire next year.

He scheme worked temporarily, but It has since boomeranged back on Ruto who is now facing massive rejection by member of the Kipsigis community. It has turned out to be a blessing to Raila in disguise as members of this particular community are now drifting back to the ODM and vowed to support Raila Odinga in his presidential bid.

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USA, Ohio: Farm Policy that’s Better for Farmers, Fairer to Taxpayers

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From: Senator Sherrod Brown

With one in seven Ohio jobs connected to agriculture, it’s obvious just how vital farming is to our state. That’s one of the reasons I’m honored to represent our state’s farmers, ranchers, and rural communities as Ohio’s first senator on the Agriculture Committee in more than four decades. Over the last year, as part of my “Grown in Ohio” listening tour, I’ve had the opportunity to hear directly from farmers, business leaders, and community officials about how we can reform our agriculture policy so that it’s more responsive to the needs of farmers and rural communities and fairer to taxpayers.

That’s why I’m fighting to pass the 2012 farm bill, which reflects locally-identified priorities of Ohio’s rural communities, bolsters Ohio’s number one industry to create jobs, and strengthens our economy while reducing the deficit.

Reauthorized only once every five years, the farm bill offers an opportunity to adjust our farm, food, conservation and rural policies. In addition to continuing natural resource conservation and investments in nutrition, this farm bill includes the most significant reforms to farm policy in decades. It eliminates more than 100 duplicative programs and authorizations, and takes steps to crack down on fraud and abuse to make sure only those who are eligible for benefits receive them. And because this deficit-reducing bill saves some $23 billion in taxpayer dollars, this is a bill for all Ohioans.

The centerpiece of the bill’s reform and deficit reduction efforts is an overhaul of the farm safety net, modeled on a bill I introduced last year with Republican Senator Thune – called the Aggregate Risk and Revenue Management Program (ARRM). Our proposal and the 2012 farm bill eliminate the existing network of direct farm support programs in favor of a less expensive, market-oriented safety net that will kick in only when times are tough. With this bill, the era of direct payments – and paying farmers for crops regardless of need or market conditions – is over. The farm bill makes simple commonsense reforms. The bill also limits the amount of farm program payments any individual can receive.

While directing $23 billion to deficit reduction, the 2012 farm bill also supports the biobased-products industry and continued investment that can create jobs in Ohio. Companies producing biobased products, which are composed wholly or significantly of biological ingredients, are creating jobs in Ohio’s small towns and rural communities, and generating a link between agriculture and manufacturing. Last September at OSU, I held a roundtable with Ohio’s biobased leaders to discuss the need for an Ohio-led, U.S. biobased industry. Ideas from this roundtable helped establish the “Grow it here, Make it Here” initiative, which has been included in the farm bill and will help create new market opportunities for Ohio farmers and some 130 biobased manufacturers in our state.

Similarly, many Ohio farmers explained to me that they see opportunities for growth right in state, selling to Ohioans who want to buy Ohio-grown and Ohio-made goods. These comments contributed to my Local Farms, Foods and Jobs Act, which would forge closer links between Ohio producers and consumers by addressing production, aggregation, marketing, and distribution needs. The bill would also improve consumer access to healthy, fresh food with support for technology and direct sales and many components of my bill are included in the farm bill.

Since our nation’s food and agriculture policy affects all Americans every day, it is crucial to ensure that the 2012 farm bill creates jobs, and provides economic relief to those in need. The 2012 farm bill is a bipartisan reform bill that saves taxpayers billions of dollars while maintaining investments in the economy, the environment, and public health.

There is no excuse to delay its passage. We must act swiftly to pass the 2012 farm bill.

Sincerely,

Sherrod Brown
U.S. Senator

Washington, D.C.
713 Hart Senate Building
Washington, DC 20510
p (202) 224-2315
f (202) 228-6321

Columbus
200 N High St.
Room 614
Columbus, OH 43215
p (614) 469-2083
f (614) 469-2171
Toll Free
1-888-896-OHIO (6446)

Egyptian entrepreneur to establish new multi-billion sugar mill in Tanzania

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Writes Leo Odera Omolo

An Egyptian entrepreneur plans to inject at least Tshs 396 billion {USD 200 million} into a sugar plantation and processing factory at a location near the Tanzanian capital, Dar Es Salaam.

Egyptian African Company for Investment and Development revealed it plans to acquire a plantation of between 10,000 acres and 20,000 acres in Rufiji, some 100 kilometers from Dar Es Salaam.

The company’s chairman Mostafa EL Ahwal said last week that the company expects to produce the first consignment of white sugar in the year 2014. The plantation in Rufiji, under Agro Forest Plantation Limited, will produce 500 tones to 750 tones of sugar per day translating into at least 120,000 tones of sugar per annum. This output is expected to help reduce the country’s reliance on sugar imports and bring prices down.

Tanzania is however, currently experiencing sugar glut with the sugar Board of Tanzania saying it has 460,000 tones of sugar, local demand is 380,000 metric tones per year.

Despite the increase in supply prices are still high at between Tshs 2,000 {USD 1.27} and Tshs 2,500 {USD 1.59} per kilogramme. The high prices have been attributed to factors such as transport and importation costs. Unreliable power supply and rising fuel costs, both major inputs in the manufacture of sugar, have also contributed to the high costs.

The increased production should also see Tanzania export more sugar as none of the East African Community member countries Is currently self sufficient in sugar production while the demand for the product continues to rise.

The entry of the Egyptian firm is the latest in a string of investments from the North African nation in Tanzania. Egypt Air recently resumed flights to Tanzania. The local project co–coordinator for Agro-Forest Plantation Ltd, Kiondo Mahanya, said that the focus of sugar production would include the smallholder farmers.

Tanzania may witness unprecedented levels of investment in the future because the regime in Egypt considers Africa a priority,” said the Egyptian ambassador to Tanzania HOSSAM Moharam.

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Food security in Africa / African Development Bank Chief to Meet G8 Leaders for Unprecedented Session

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From: News Release – African Press Organization

PRESS RELEASE

African Development Bank Chief to Meet G8 Leaders for Unprecedented Session

Donald Kaberuka will take part in an extraordinary meeting to discuss the critical issue of food security in Africa

WASHINGTON, May 17, 2012/ — Dr. Donald Kaberuka, President of the African Development Bank (http://www.afdb.org), will take part in an extraordinary meeting of the world’s richest nations this week to discuss the critical issue of food security in Africa.
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[Photo:] http://www.photos.apo-opa.com/plog-content/images/apo/photos/donald-kaberuka—afdb-president.jpg

President Kaberuka has been invited to the Group of Eight (G8) Summit at Camp David near Washington by U.S. President Barack Obama, who stated in the invitation that the session will focus on ways to “increase private sector investment in agriculture and scale innovation.”

This reflects the growing recognition on the world stage that Africa plays an increasingly important role in the global economy, and that the African Development Bank is a leading contributor.

Saturday’s meeting will include leaders of the G8 nations, several African Heads of State, executives from multinational companies, African private sector leaders and President Kaberuka representing the AfDB. It’s the first time that an AfDB chief has been invited to a residence of the U.S. President.

During his visit to Washington, President Kaberuka will also participate in a symposium on food and nutrition security and attend a reception hosted by Hillary Clinton, the U.S. Secretary of State.

The African Development Bank has been instrumental in promoting sustainable economic growth and reducing poverty on the continent for nearly 50 years. Its membership includes 53 African and 24 non-African nations.

The Bank was established in 1964 to stimulate and mobilize internal and external resources to promote investments as well as provide its regional member countries with technical and financial assistance.

Distributed by the African Press Organization on behalf of the African Development Bank.

For more on the African Development Bank, go to http://www.afdb.org

SOURCE

African Development Bank (AfDB)