Sugar board, millers want law amended

Sugar industry players want the Sugar Act, 2001 revised to ease its implementation.
Millers and the Kenya Sugar Board are calling for the removal of the requirement to have mobile weighbridges at the farm gates.
But the farmers are opposed to removal of this requirement. Kenya Sugar Cane Growers Association chairperson Samuel Anyango said farmers will not support amendment of the law to “license exploitation.”
The Sugar Act states that “The role of the miller is to harvest, weigh at the farm gate, transport and mill the sugar cane supplied from the growers’ fields and nucleus estates efficiently and make payments to the sugar cane growers as specified in the agreement.”
KSB, through its chairman Zachary Obado, contends that the particular section has no definite time frame for implementation and needs revision to fit “the Kenyan scenario”.
“We borrowed this is a technology from Kenana Sugar Company in Sudan, a company that depends entirely on a nucleus estate unlike our local factories whose outgrowers number more than 100,000 spread all over,” Mr Obado said.
“The time for implementing this requirement still remains indefinite because it requires resources and thorough sensitisation of the millers and loaders since it is a technology we still do not have,” he added.
He said Kenya jumped on the idea of mobile weighbridges without considering its practicality.
Mumias Sugar Company managing director Dr Evans Kidero echoes Mr Obado’s argument that these requirements are some of the reasons the Act has not been fully implemented. “It is impractical,” Dr Kidero said of the weighbridge issue.
Chief executives of other sugar companies also hold that the Act, particularly the section calling for mobile weighbridges, needs to be revised. They argue that leaving it as it is would have far reaching implications on the sugar industry that is reeling under a Sh60 billion debt.
“The mode of transportation would have to be considered as well as who pays for the transportation of cane to the factory. If millers will bear the transportation costs, they will have to improve on their efficiency in order to reduce the spillage and all these are added costs,” said Edward Musebe, Chemelil Sugar Company managing director.
His Sony Sugar counterpart Paul Odola said it is not a simple thing to acquire and maintain the machines despite their obvious advantages to the farmers.
“If it turns out to be heavy and cumbersome we shall have no option but to abandon it and revert to the old way but, if it’s easy to move around, it will help the millers and farmers,” Mr Odola said.
Besides the nucleus estate, Sony has 33,000 outgrowers spread over an area of 25,000 hectares who will all need a weighbridge at their farms.
The chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture Franklin Bett however insists that before the law is changed, millers and KSB must follow the industry regulations.
“The law is clear and the weighing of the cane must be done in such a way that the farmer is satisfied that his cane is accounted for,” the Buret MP said. Alongside the Sugar Act, Mr Bett said that the Weights and Measures Act should ensure that farmers are adequately compensated for their produce.
The Sugar Campaign for Change (Sucam) argues that weighing the harvest at the time of loading at the farm would ease supervision for the farmer so that the right entries are made.
“Many farmers in the eight growing zones end up with figures that do not match the efforts they put in production because some millers play games at the weighing point at the factory,” said Michael Arum of Sucam.
“There is corruption at every stage that the farmer is not involved in,” he added.
Mr Arum said weighing the cane at the farm would result in less spillage as the miller will incur loss. Currently, loaders leave a lot of cane at the farm while more is lost along the way to the factory reducing the tonnage, to the disadvantage of the farmer.
Having weighbridges at farm gates would ensure that the farmer gets the correct payment for cane delivered.
At the current market rates, one mobile weighbridge costs Sh20 million. The country boasts about 100,000 cane farmers and, if a weighbridge were to be allocated to each farm, KSB and millers would spend in excess of Sh2 trillion.