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