‘Bitter test’ for mumias sugar veteran at the top

Saturday June 16,2018 would have been a memorable day for Nashon Aseka. He would have clocked a year as the chief executive of Mumias Sugar Company #ticker:MSC which he first joined as a trainee more than 30 years ago.

But as fate would have it, he will miss out on marking the one-year anniversary at the helm of the troubled Western Kenya-based miller.

A company board meeting in Nairobi on Tuesday saw the suspension of Mr Aseka as CEO over “doubtful transactions” that allegedly appeared to have been entered without following proper procedures.

“Some doubtful transactions appear to have been entered into without following due process and requisite approvals,” the board said in a statement, without giving details of the transaction.

When the Business Daily caught up with Mr Aseka on Wednesday, a day after his suspension, the veteran sugar industry manager oozed a calm demeanour as he fielded questions on the matter.

“A number of things were raised (during the board meeting on Tuesday) and later I was told I would be suspended,” he said.

“I am still waiting for the letter of suspension. Under such circumstances, it would be wrong to say much. For now, it is just some general talk. I don’t know the exact charge that’s going to be investigated.”

Mr Aseka stays hopeful of resuming work at the miller he first joined as graduate management trainee in May 1982, rising through the ranks to serve as production superintendent (June 1984-May 1988) and production manager (June 1988-May 1992).

He was thereafter promoted to head factory operations until August 2005 when he assumed his role as business development head.

Mr Aseka went on to teach sugar technology at Kakamega-headquartered Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology between October 2007 and February 2014, before becoming head of sugar technology at Sugar Directorate (formerly Kenya Sugar Board) for a year to March 2015.

He became an interim manager at the Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA), the regulatory body formed following the merger of all agricultural parastatals in 2015.

Mr Aseka exited the regulator on his appointment as managing director of State-owned Nzoia Sugar Company in April 2017 but ran into headwinds amid hostility from a clique of politicians and farmers.

His stay at Nzoia only lasted two months after the Mumias Sugar board tapped him to become acting CEO following the shock resignation of Australian Errol Johnston four months before end of his two-year renewable contract in August 2017.

Mr Johnson had been tasked to return Mumias to glory days when he served as CEO between 1998 and 2001, a role Mr Aseka was subsequently entrusted with.

Mr Aseka’s return to Mumias was not rosy. He found a shell of the giant sugar miller he left in February 2006 as head of projects and business development.

The company has lately faced a cash crunch that affected its operations. For example, Mumias Sugar’s output fell to 15,891 tonnes in the year ended last June from 75,073 tonnes a year earlier, and the miller attributed this to cane shortage and a shutdown of its plant for maintenance. It reported an annual pretax loss of Sh9.53 billion versus a loss of Sh6.07 billion a year earlier.

Senior managers and workers at the company painted a picture of Mr Aseka as a “hands-on boss” largely because of his vast knowledge and experience in technology in the sugar industry.

READ: Mumias Sugar boss suspended amid probe

During his close to one-year stint at the helm, the suspended CEO spent much of his time in cane growing fields, focusing on improving dwindling cane productivity to ensure adequate supply of the raw material.

Unlike his predecessors, Mr Aseka shied off the media.

In an uncharacteristic fashion of most chief executives, Mr Aseka had circulated his mobile phone number to cane farmers and asked them to contact him whenever they needed support to improve cane production as he sought to fight off cane poaching.

The focus of Mr Aseka’s short stint at the factory has been centred on winning back the confidence of farmers to plant more cane to ensure the miller has adequate supply of raw materials to sustain operations.

Time will tell if Mr Aseka will resume work at Mumias.