The board of troubled Mumias Sugar is open to ideas on how to resolve the financial crisis facing the miller and resume operations, chairman Kennedy Ngumbau has said.
Ngumbau said the company was ready to work with all stakeholders including lenders to revive the miller which has remained shut since April last year.
“We have no qualms about anybody coming in the operation or management of the company. What we want is anything good for the company and the community,” he told the Star on the phone on Thursday.
The chairman said the board had done its best under prevailing circumstances to protect the assets of the company.
“As the board, we have fought so many people to protect the company assets and it has not been easy,” Ngumbau said.
He said the company was ready to engage with stakeholders to come up with a formula that benefits cane farmers, lenders and the national and county governments.
He said that the Capital Markets Authorities had indicated willingness to convene a meeting between KCB and the management to address the takeover.
“For example, if the person [receiver] comes from Nairobi alone and serves papers and runs away, who remains there?” he posed.
KCB, one of the lenders, last Friday appointed PVR Rao of TACT Consultant Services as receiver manager to run the troubled miller.
The move has created tension among cane farmers and the local leadership who are opposed to anybody from outside taking over.
Kakamega Senator Cleophas Malala said Rao would be allowed to take over after consultations with the company board of directors and the local leadership.
Kakamega county on Wednesday appealed to KCB to consider recalling the receiving manager to allow for consultations on revival of the miller.
Former Medical Services minister Amukowa Anangwe said the government was to blame for the trouble at Mumias.
“By the bank putting the miller under receivership, the government is confirming that it has failed to rescue the company because KCB is a government institution and cannot have done what it did without senior government officials' knowledge,” he said.
Anangwe said the national government should sell its 20 per cent shareholding in Mumias to another investor who will team up with other shareholders to turn around the company.
