“Given the ongoing public interest which the matter has attracted and the call for a publicly run bidding exercise, we have found it worthwhile to take out our application.
We will however express interest, should the exercise be conducted in consultation with all the stakeholders,” he said on Thursday.
The company was placed under receivership in September 2019 by the KCB group to protect its assets and maintain operations.
On Saturday, Narendra said that KCB advertised the leasing and they placed their bid.
“The due process was followed and we were shortlisted and agreed in everything but at the time of starting Mumias, politics started. For what reason we don’t know,” he said.
He said that politicians have no role in a company under receivership because everything goes private.
“I have followed the right process but if the leasers don’t want to think about the local people or cane farmers it's upon them,” he said.
Mumias has been relying on ethanol as the main source of income after other revenue streams such as the production of water, cogeneration and sugar production were closed.
The distillery however stopped in March due to challenges relating to the shortage of molasses in addition to the exorbitant cost of transporting molasses and bagasse from other factories.
On Thursday, the receiver-manager at Mumias sugar company Ponangipalli Ramana Rao said that the process to lease out the factory for revival is not yet complete.
He said that the decision to lease Mumias assets to revive the company was reached after initial activities towards the revival faced challenges.
