LUGARI MP Ayub Savula has accused the Jubilee government of being behind problems facing the sugar industry.
Savula said the government has neglected the sector by failing to review the single customs protocol taxation regime by East African Community member states.
"It is unfair for Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich to put in place taxation measures for tea and ignore sugar just because the crop benefits people from Western," he said.
Foam Mattress proprietor Surendra Patel plans to build Sh800 million South Gem Sugar Factory in Siaya, which is 49km from the Mumias miller.
A private investor is preparing to put up a multi-million sugar factory in Kanyilaji, Siaya County, which is expected to revive the tottering industry in the area and increase national production.
In Summary
* A review of all new cases of development and licensing involving sugar milling companies in Western Kenya and the lake region are typical of investments devoid of proper studies and control by licensing authorities thus contributing to current cases of anarchy and arson besides theft of cane.
The latest development in the sugar industry is the talk about an impending acquisition of one of the new sugar factories in the Southern Nyanza region by one of the players in the industry.
Initially, I was inclined to dismiss the talk as having no substance. But I changed my mind after I found out that Office of the Commissioner for Monopolies had actually dispatched its officers in the field to study the implications of the impending acquisition and to investigate whether it was likely to lead to over concentration of economic power in the sugar industry by one player.
Sugarcane growers have opposed plan by the ministry of agriculture to have them contracted to particular millers. Kenya sugar cane growers association KESGA and a section of millers termed the move outdated and will only oppress the industry with miller’s oppression to farmers becoming a norm.
AN increase of counterfeit sugar from Tanzania coming into Kenya has raised an alarm in the industry with a key sugar miller warning the illicit trade is posing a major threat to local players.
Tanzanian middlemen are exporting thousands of tonnes of cheap smuggled sugar into Kenya to reap from a shortage of the commodity here. But this has meant low uptake of local sugar exposing millers to a bleak future.
Tax free sugar - Kenya will retain the current enlarged import quota of duty-free sugar as part of a deal that saw the country granted a two-year extension to fully liberalise its sugar sector. The lowly 10 per cent duty presently charged on consignments outside the 340,000 tonnes special quota from the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) will also be continued as a strategy to wean the local sugar industry to competition.
Improved efficiency by millers saw sugar production increase by 18.1 per cent in the first seven months of the year, defying biting cane shortages.The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics data shows millers had processed 337 metric tonnes of sugar at the end of July, an 18.1 per cent increase from the 288 metric tonnes produced over a similar period in 2010.
NAIROBI - Kenya plans to seek a two-year extension of sugar import safeguards from regional trade bloc COMESA after reforms aimed at making its sugar industry competitive failed to move fast enough, a senior government official said on Monday.
A sugar mill in Kakamega, western Kenya. Construction work on the planned Sh16 billion integrated sugar mill near Mombasa will begin next month, with its products expected in the market within one year.
Construction work on the planned Sh16 billion integrated sugar mill near Mombasa will begin next month, with its products expected in the market within one year.
The plant’s owners said the factory will crush 3,000 tonnes of cane per day. It will also have a 30,000 litre- ethanol production plant and host an 18 megawatt power plant run on baggasse.
Sugarcane harvesting. Mauritian Sugar giant Omnicane will establish a Sh16.5 billion plant in Kwale in move that will heighten competition in a market that has witnessed a number of new entrants
Mauritian Sugar giant Omnicane will establish a Sh16.5 billion plant in Kwale in move that will heighten competition in a market that has witnessed a number of new entrants.
The sugar crisis in the country is set to get worse as Busia County residents plot to cripple transportation of sugarcane to Mumias Sugar Company in a fortnight.
Busia County farmers have vowed to stop supplying cane to the country’s biggest sugar miller to protest against the company’s irregular acquisition of more than 800 acres of land in the county.
The land had been earmarked for the construction of Busia Sugar factory.
A government think-tank is opposing the extension of the safeguards protecting the local sugar industry from duty-free imports being fronted by the Trade and Agriculture ministries.
The Kenya Sugar Research Foundation (Kesref) says the country is losing Sh4 billion annually because of inefficient milling.
The sharp increase in the cost of sugar could see the price of products like bread, cakes, alcoholic and soft drinks go up soon.
Industrial sugar users say they are struggling with the crisis and are considering hiking prices of their finished products.
A tractor loaded with sugar cane arrives at the Chemelil Sugar weighbridge. Kenya’s chances of winning another extension of the safeguards protecting the local sugar industry from duty-free imports will depend on the implementation of sector reforms, Comesa has said
Kenya’s chances of winning another extension of the safeguards protecting the local sugar industry from duty-free imports will depend on the implementation of sector reforms, Comesa has said.
Nairobi — Development partners are unhappy with the slow pace of privatising government-owned sugar millers, which was expected to inject efficiency needed to survive in the competitive global market.
Stakeholders have cast doubt over the speed of privatisation with less than a year to the expiry of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) safeguard measures.
BY JOEL OKWAYO
Kenya Sugar Board chief executive officer Solomon Odera says plans by some directors to have their term extended is null and void.
Mr Odera said the elections would be held in 2011 since the Sugar Act says directors serve for three years.
"The Act is clear and those who want to use the State Corporations Act to extend their term to five years will be going against laws of the sugar industry," said Odera.
He said pressure from cane farmers to have the polls held was intensifying and the board was making arrangements for the polls.
Tractors offload sugarcane at a factory in western Kenya. The global sugar price trend could help cushion Kenya from increased competition when all special safeguards on duty free imports from the more efficient producers within the Common Market for Eastern Africa are lifted.
A sustained rise in global prices of sugar, partly fuelled by recent floods in Brazil and Australia, could be a blessing for Kenya whose sugar industry remains shaky barely a year before all safeguards on duty free imports of the commodity from Comesa are lifted.
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's 2010 sugar output dipped 4.5 percent to 523,522 tonnes due to a weather-induced cane shortage in some zones but should rebound by 6 percent in 2011, the industry regulator said on Monday.
East Africa's largest economy remains a sugar importer and is struggling to boost output due to relatively high production costs and poorly funded sugar factories.
Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi has said further delays in giving Butali Sugar Mills a crushing license would be "immoral".Mudavadi regretted that investments by the entrepreneur and more than 31,000 sugarcane farmers are going to waste.
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