Kenya: House Team to Assess Sugar Industry Status

Nairobi — The parliamentary select committee on agriculture will next week be on a tour of the Coast Province to collect information on the status of the sugar industry.

Committee chairman John Mututho said the tour will start with public hearings at Ramisi, Msambweni where a sugar factory is in the process of being set up.

He said the sugar industry in Kenya was being controlled by a cartel that is frustrating local production. "Kenya has the potential to produce enough sugar for local consumption and even for export but there is always a strong force that is controlling the sector by importing the commodity.

"We have toured other areas, especially in Nyanza and Western Kenya and our focus is now at the Coast where proposals for sugar production have been made," he said at a press conference in Mombasa.

After Ramisi, the team will tour Tana River where two major sugar projects have been proposed. "We are therefore calling on the local people to turn up and give us their views on how the sector can be revived" he said.

source: allafrica