WAR OF WORDS HAS ERUPTED BETWEEN NYANZA SUGAR MILLERS OVER ALLEGED SCRAMBLING AND POACHING OF RAW CANE FROM OTHER GROWING ZONES.

Business News By Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City.

The war of words has erupted between a number of white sugar milling factories, which are located within the Nyanza sugar belt in Nyanza Province, following complaints that one of the millers was encroaching into the exclusive cane growing zones which belonged to other millers.

As the result, cane farms developed with loans issued to the farmers by the affected millers, on the understanding that the loan money would be recovered by the miller at the harvesting time, could not be recovered in time. The burning issue is causing ripples among the players in the industry.

Experts however, have placed the blames for this unbecoming scenario on the door step of the Kenya Sugar Board {KSB}. The KSB flagrantly flouted the rule that required that a new sugar cane processing factory must be established at a distance beyond 40 kilometers away from the existing factory.

Despite vehement opposition from other millers and stakeholder, the KSB had licensed the Kibos Sugar and Allied Industries at Kibos, near Kisumu City, which is less than 40p kilometers away from Miwani Sugar Mill {now under the official receivership}. Hence the current situation of the standoff and not very orderly system.

What is happening now is that the Kibos Sugar and Allied Industries, after totally disregarding the existing harvesting of cane rule, constructed a weigh bridge at Awasi Market, hence the source of discontent.

Most of the cane farmers in Awasi and its environs are either contracted to Chemelil or Muhoroni factories. And a few non-contracted ones are also farming within the classified zones of the two factories. The management of the two mills have already expressed fears that they might be forced to close down owing to acute shortage of cane, which they have predicted would occur within one year from now, if the situation is not corrected in time.

The Agricultural manager at Muhoroni Sugar Company, Joel Wangendo, was recently quoted in the media as saying that the move by Kibos Sugar Mill to establish a weigh bridge at Awasi Market, which is located close to 60 kilometers away from their factory, and in an area which is considered to be the cane growing zones for both Chemelil and Muhoroni factories, is malicious and intended to destabilize the two government owned sugar manufacturing factories.

Nearly all the sugar millers in Western Kenya have their weigh bridges attached to within the mills gates, and not in the interior part of the country. Therefore, according to Mr. Wagendo, the establishment of weigh bridge at Awasi Market by the Kibos based mill is ill-conceived, and has malicious intentions of undermining both Muhoroni and Chemelil sugar factories. It was a move well calculated to mean reducing the amount of cane available for crashing by both Muhoroni and Chemelil sugar factories. Mr. Wangendo predicted that the two factories could be forced to close their operations within one year’s time, if the situation is not rectified and seriously addressed by the government.

Mr. Wangendo argued that some of the farmers being targeted by Kibos Mills for poaching in the region had received cane development loans from his mill and others from Chemelil, which they were suppose to pay back with cane deliveries. “When they have not delivered the cane, which was supposed to be security to the miller, it means we cannot recover the money”.

Another industry player observed, “in a situation where several white sugar processing mills are located close to each other, a proper definition of cane harvesting zoning is necessary in order to keep all of them afloat with continuous raw cane supplies”. “The government”, he added, “must work out a harmonious, but a clear -cut-policy and plans, to create the canes growing exclusive zones for each factory in order to avoid scrambling and uncalled for competition”.

In another important news development about Kenyan sugar production, which appeared in the columns of newspapers, is the confrontation between the Mumias Sugar Company Managing Director Dr. Evans Kidero and members of the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture, chaired by the Naivasha MP, John Mututho.

Mututho terminated the committee meeting sitting at the County Hall, Nairobi, prematurely and declared the abrasive Mumias MD a hostile witness.

Dr. Kidero was summoned by the committee to be grilled about the alleged Mumias Sugar Company rising debt and allegations that the company was impoverishing cane farmers in the region.

The MP retorted to the committee members, “I choose not to answer questions about the company’s alleged debts to the Mumias Out growers Company {MOCO}. He also angered Mutuhto for allegedly saying that Parliament was not the right forum to discuss the sugar company’s dispute with MOCO.

This, according to the STANDARD newspaper, follows a claim by Mumias MP, Ben Washiali that Kenya’s most profitable sugar company owes MOCO staggering amounts of money in debt, to the tune of Kshs 2.6 billion.

Dr. Kidero said that the contract the sugar firm and the out growers company has, establishes the mechanism to solve disputes.

He said he was reluctant to discuss what he described as a private financial matter before the MPs because, “Mumias Sugar is a private company, and not a government parastatal body”.

He also said the matter has been arbitrated and concluded by Capital Market Authority and Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya. But before the altercation with the committee chairman, Kidero had weathered a barrage of questions from MPs critical of the company’s treatment of sugar farmers contracted to it. Most committee members felt the company’s huge profits, estimated at Kshs 4 billion last year ,do not translate into reasonable income for the farmers in Mumias sugar belt.

Mumias MP, Ben Washiali, said sugarcane farmers displaced from their ancestral land, when the firm was established about 40 years ago, have not been adequately compensated.

Gichugu MP, Martha Karua, and Namable MP, Chris Okemo, were among those who severely criticized Mumias Sugar Company for impoverishing small scale cane farmers.

Okemo said the Sugar Act has been flouted, leading to exploitation of farmers.

It should be remembers that Mumias sugarcane farmers early last year staged a demonstration in Mumias town, to protest against delays in paying for their cane bills, underpayments and mistreatment. During the peaceful march in Mumias Town, police loathed teargas canister to disperse the farmers, who were led by six members of parliament from Western Province. But apparently unknown to the policemen, a troop of hired thugs and political goons from Kisumu took the advantage of the confusion, sneaked in, and unleashed violence against the demonstrators and MPs.

In the confusion that followed, the Mumias MP, Ben Washiali, was savagely beaten up and had his arm broken up by the thugs, suspected to be members of the infamous Kisumu Bagdad boys. The Bagdad Boys were said to have been hired and ferried to Mumias at night, in several Nissan Matatu vans, by some unknown persons.

The goons were suspected to have come from Kajulu suburb and the Kondele Bagdad Boys. All of them are said to have returned to their base safely, but later complained of having been conned by the person who hired them at Kshs 10,000 per each person, but later only gave them Kshs 3,000 each, while pocketing the balance.

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leooderaomolo@yahoo.com