• The county government is keen on reviving the miller to steady its economy by creating employment opportunities to put money back into the pockets of residents.
• The company had more than 2,000 employees before it went under, and the new management by Uganda-based Sarrai Group has recalled 500.
Image: FILE
The resumption of Mumias Sugar Company after more than three years of closure has restored hope among Kakamega residents.
The company had halted sugar production two years before its closure over inadequate raw materials and heavy debts running into billions of shillings.
Last week it was announced that the company would resume full operations this week.
The county government is keen on reviving the miller to steady its economy by creating employment opportunities to put money back into the pockets of residents.
The company had more than 2,000 employees before it went under, and the new management by Uganda-based Sarrai Group has recalled 500.
Its collapse robbed residents of thousands of direct and indirect employment, denying sugarcane farmers a place to sell their crops and revenue to the county government.
Resumption of milling activities by the once premier miller in East and Central Africa has already increased activity in Mumias town and its environs as life returns in some of the areas that were once vibrant but had remained ghost towns after its collapse.
Shibale market, right at the gate of the company that had been abandoned, is slowly returning to life with traders now repairing their premises.
Boniface Wangwe, a farmer from Navakholo, said he expects the harassment from other millers that farmers have been going through will end with the resumption of Mumias.
“We have been having it rough just to obtain a cane harvesting permit from other millers since the collapse of the company. One has had to bribe to have their cane harvested but Mumias has now made it easier to have best cane,” he said.
Wangwe said what matters is for the leadership in the region to support revival efforts in the interest of residents whose only source of income is farming, with sugarcane farming as the main agricultural activity in the county and not who the investor is.
Musalia Ekaya, a farmer from Mumias West, said he hopes the national government will fully support the revival of the company.
“The problems that resulted in the collapse of the company are linked to the state. KCB which placed the company under receivership, KRA and Kenya Power are state-owned and only the national government has the key to full operation of the miller,” he said.
“Mumias Sugar revival was an item in the Kenya Kwanza agreement and we don’t expect that the government will start another process of identifying a different investor given that the current investor was brought in politically."
Noah Makunda, who had shifted to supply his cane to West Kenya, said he will return to Mumias after its revival.
He said Mumias had better structures to support farmers in cane production than other companies in the region.
“In West Kenya for example, they only support you for the first round and the subsequent harvests you are on your own. I have already uprooted the cane I planted with them and I'm now planting for Mumias. I had a contract with the company before it collapsed and their dealings were good,” he said.
Kenya National Federation Sugarcane Farmers deputy secretary general Simon Wesechere said the federation expects the investor to fully involve cane farmers in the revival process.
“We hope they will support farmers and treat them as one of the prime stakeholders and not bring in cane from Uganda to crush as the farmers continue to suffer,” he said.
Wesechere said the Sarrai Group has not reached out to farmers to engage them and this could mean the investor has his eyes elsewhere for cane supply.
David Wamatsi said the resumption of operations by the miller will change the lives of Kakamega residents.
He said Mumias was the economic mainstay for the population in Kakamega and its collapse has affected the lives of those who depended on it to feed and educate their children.
“What we want is for the company to be able to pay farmers timely like West Kenya and Butali are doing and avoid giving them debit returns,” he said.
He said he expects the resumption of operations by the giant miller will help improve prices for property in Mumias town, which dropped after the collapse of the company.
Mumias was placed under receivership by the Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) group on behalf of other creditor whom it owed billions in shillings in September 2019.
Prior to receivership, the company had struggled for more than three years in an on and off operation mode.
KCB leased core and non-core assets of the company to the Sarrai group on a 20-year lease to revive the company. On Monday last week, the new management announced that the company will resume full operations this week.
The miller, with an inbuilt capacity of 8,400 tonnes of cane daily, is operating at 25 per cent as maintenance continues.
Kakamega Governor Fernandes Barasa has committed to working with other stakeholders to ensure the revival succeeds and is sustainable.
He urged the national government to surrender its 20 per cent share holding in the company to the county government.
Barasa said this will give farmers a voice on the board of management where decisions are made.
Edited by A.N