It is high time Kenya started treating this very critical matter with the seriousness it deserves and begin the long awaited journey of reforming the sugar industry.
The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa’s (Comesa) decision to extend the safeguard measures it granted Kenya’s struggling sugar sector more than 10 years ago is welcome. It shows the understanding that the trading bloc has of the millions of ordinary people whose livelihoods depend on sugarcane farming.
But it is high time Kenya started treating this very critical matter with the seriousness it deserves and begin the long awaited journey of reforming the sugar industry.
Nairobi has previously been granted multiple extensions with little to show for it in terms of solid reforms aimed at making its sugar sector competitive.
Instead, the industry has continued to deteriorate with all the State-owned millers on their death bed with massive cash flow problems, partly arising from heavy indebtedness and unfair competition imported contraband.
Besides, some of these factories have not paid their employees for months while millions of livelihoods dependent on sugar farming have been ruined.
This is not tolerable given the huge economic potential of the sugar industry and efforts must be stepped up to salvage its fortunes.
Ultimately, Kenyan authorities must realise that the time for empty rhetoric is over and action that will bring the desired change must kick in immediately.
For instance, the long-pending privatisation of State-owned millers should be concluded to help attract fresh capital and expertise that would get the sugar firms out of the quandary.
Revamping the sugar industry will, however, require Kenya to go beyond having state-of-the-art factories and high yield cane varieties to guarantee competitiveness in the marketplace.
Remedial actions must effectively address the porosity of the border points where cartels are having a field day, swamping the domestic market with contraband sugar.
It would be pointless having import caps on sugar from the Comesa when there are no checks to ensure the same. Order and discipline must be restored in the import verification and clearance systems to cushion local millers and farmers from unfair competition.
The State must, however, prepare for a backlash from cartels who have over the years benefited from the rot in the sugar industry. The cartels are likely to fight and frustrate reforms but their machinations must not defeat the will to support the livelihoods of millions of households dependent on the sugar industry.
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