Reports Leo Odera Omolo In Awendo Town.
Trouble is brewing in the Awendo-based SONYSUGAR following the firm’s refusal; to implement Trouble is brewing in the Awendo-based SONYSUGAR company over the firm’s refusal to implement the new cane price of from Kshs 2885 per ton to Kshs 3185 per ton as it was agreed last year by the price committee of the Kenya Sugar Board.
After the end of the rowdy meeting held at the green Stadium, Awendo, unknown people, suspected to be the striking cane cutters, set ablaze part of the nucleus estate destroying hundred of acres of mature sand still to mature cane plants
On Saturday, the cane hundreds of cane cutters who had joined the farmers also in demand that their wages be increased on line along with the cane prices staged a peaceful demonstration in Awendo town and its environ, but the management summoned the police to disperse them. Thereafter the cane cutter went on cane burning rampaged and close to 50 acres of mature and premature plant cane were torched.
Experts estimated the burnt cane to be worth over Kshs 30 millions. The farmers had also resolved in one of their numerous hard-hitting resolution that the SONYSUGAR managing director Mr Paul O. Odola be sacked with immediate effect as he has failed to offer effic9ient management of the facility.
By Sunday morning several cane farm blocks were still shouldering on fire. The management team had organized hundreds of workers who were seen battling to put off the raging fire. The chain cutter had vowed to paralyze the operations of SONYSUGAR until their grievances are attended to and addressed adequately.
The farmers accused the MD of being excessively arrogant and managing the facility like a white collar job, and yet this is farming facilities, which need its manager’s to be mobile and cultivating good rapport with the sugar cane farmers.
The new prices should have been affected from September last year, but SONYSIGUAR has flatly refused to implement the new prices as was agreed by both parties and the Kenya Sugar Board. Other sugar millers have already affected the new prices.
On Friday an attempt was made by the SONYSUGAR management to prevent hundreds of cane farmers and can cutters free access to the company Green Stadium for a public Baraza failed and the farmer forced their way into the facility by breaking the Stadium gates.
The company had posted a team of its security personnel armed with fierce dogs who had ringed the stadium, but they were overpowered by the waves of enraged farmers, forcing some of the guards to flee for their dear life as the situation turned chaotic add life threatening.
The management had posted the security personnel using fierce dogs to stop the farmers meeting. The meeting was called by the SONYSUGAR farmers’ zonal director Mr Zachary Okoth Obado. He was accompanied by KSB directors fro other factories who included Eng. Muhama Mukhwana [Mumias],Iweyi Mwambe [West Kenya], Nicholas Oricho {Chemelil,Kibos and Miwani zone],and KSB Treasurer Mr. Humprey Muyu and other leaders. Also in attendance was the chairman of Awendo Town Council Con.Johnson Omol Owiro and other local leaders
Obado told the meeting that the new price of raw cane per ton is not negotiable and that SONYSUGAR must be compelled to pay the correct prices of cane owing to the increased cost of production and maintenance of plant cane farms and other inputs.
Other complaints are that the MD does not relate well with the cane farmers. He sits in the office and he is inaccessible to the farmers. The KSB board members have also questioned the more and criteria in which the current SONYSUGAR MD’s contract was renewed by the government after the board had called for his immediate removal after the board had established that he is a non-performer.
Obado said that SONYSUGAR owed the cane farmers colossal amount of money to the tune of Kshs 250 million it owed them in arrears ever since July last year when the Pricing Committee, which is a national institution had recommended that the row cane prices be adjusted from Kshs 2885 to Kshs 3185 per ton.
But a spokesman of the company vehemently denied that the management had locked out the farmers from having public meeting at its facility. The organizers of the meeting had failed not consult the company that they intend to use the facility, which is currently under going renovation. Again those who gathered at the facilities were not genuine farmers but a bunch of thugs and highly alcohol intoxicated cane cutters who had their own hidden malice towards the company.
The spokesman claimed that Obado who has been sleeping on the jobs is facing election next March and perhaps wanted to use the current crisis which are merely artificial for the purpose of gaining popularity with the farmers. He is using the KSB vehicle in running around mobilizing thugs to embarrass the management.
The spokesman made it clear that SONYSUGAR is in the process of lodging complaints with the police against the KDB board chairman Mr Obado following the destruction of its property.
But Obado countered this by saying that he has repeatedly approached the MD advising him not to sit in the office, but to come out and conductdiualo9oguewith the farmers as the only way to have issues solved amicably, but the MD is adamant and preferred doing clerical work in the office instead of talking to the farmers.
A prominent farmer and a Nairobi based businessman Mr John Boby Awiti Otange, the whistle blower urged the government to overhaul the management of SONYSUGAR by sacking its current MD whom he accused of poor performance. Unless the government mover must faster the facility could close down within the next few months.
This is not the time for dictatorial tendencies, therefore anybody who cannot perform his duties well has no business sitting in the company office” Such managers should pack and go. It shameful that the management had deployed the services of fierce dogs against the farmers who0is virtually their employers at the facility.
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leooderaomolo@yahoo.com