Trouble at Nzoia Sugar Company

Sugarcane poaching and the ongoing drought may be the end of Nzoia Sugar Company in Bungoma County as it is in the process of collapsing due to a shortage sugarcane.

The acting Managing director of the company Michael Kulundu revealed that some of their rival sugarcane factories were poaching them their contacted cane thus the cause of the current situation at the firm where they are almost shutting down.

“We are struggling, we don’t have mature cane, all the cane we developed were poached by our neighbouring firms or dried due to the recent drought that hit the country. The neighbouring farmers requested us to crush their cane then we pay them weekly under their terms,” said Kulundu.

Due to shortage of cane, the company has been going as far as Naitiri, Teso and Busia in search of the sweetner.

Kulundu asked farmers who the company owed to be patient as they are in the process of clearing their January and February arrears.  

“Farmers running around maligning the company’s name that we haven’t paid them since January 2016 should stop such malicious propaganda, we have paid up to December 2016 and we are working on modalities of starting paying for the January and February arrears,” added the MD

The firm’s worker’s union secretary, Macdonald Wamocho, said that they would not allow poachers to continue stealing cane from their contracted farmers.

“We are struggling and at a brink of collapse because of such factories, you can’t set up a factory without the raw materials, the poaching menace has led to the killing of our two employees under the “anti-poaching department’ by our rivals, let them be put on notice that we can’t lose our cane and at the same time they kill our employees,” warned Mr Wamocho.

Early this year, the firm’s Managing Director Godfrey Wanyonyi and six other senior managers were suspended following accusations of misuse of funds that amounted to 11.2 million shillings.

Related: Mumias Sugar Seeks Govt Bailout as Losses double to Ksh2.9 Billion