Government initiative to boost food security timely

A government lifeline to the sugar industry should see a return to improved fortunes to a sector bedeviled by declining productivity, debilitating inefficiencies and mismanagement. The bailout comes in the form of the writing off of debts worth Sh39.7 billion that sugar millers owe the government via the Sugar Development Levy Fund.

These guarantees were announced by President Uhuru Kenyatta at the Agricultural Society of Kenya Show in Nairobi on Friday. They included a one billion shilling monetary bailout to the cash-strapped Mumias Sugar, the biggest sugar miller in the county where the government has a stake. Mumias is expected to secure another Sh2 billion through a rights issue this financial year as part of a package announced to revive the sugar sector.