How Kenya can protect sugar sector

Kibos Sugar and Allied Industries in Kisumu on June 15, 2026.

Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group

I attended an event in Nairobi on Thursday convened by the Kenya Sugar Board and billed as a “consultative stakeholder meeting” on the availability and use of locally refined white sugar.

I expected a routine discussion on agricultural policy. Instead, I found what looked like an attempt to legitimise a glaring contradiction: a punitive tax regime that shields one private enterprise while imposing crippling costs on Kenya’s wider food and beverage manufacturing sector.

PAYE Tax Calculator

Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.