President Uhuru reveals Webuye Pan Paper recovery plan

President Uhuru has announced that the collapsed multi-billion-shilling Pan Paper Mills in Webuye will be revived in three months.

The Head of State said a strategic investor had purchased the plant's assets and pledged to inject a total of Sh6 billion ($60 million) in the next few years.

Further, Uhuru reassured residents that the investor (whom he didn't name but The Standard has since established to be Ripley), had promised to give former employees priority in the recruitment exercise.

"The investment will yield close to 1,500 jobs for the people of Bungoma and Kenyans in the next three years," said Uhuru, noting that the journey to industrialisation by the Jubilee administration was on course.

The President said Industrialisation Cabinet Secretary Adan Mohammed together with other stakeholders would convene further briefing sessions in the coming days to share more details on the same.

"We are setting out the next major steps for revival. I thank the investor for the confidence he has shown in Kenya and the economic and structural reforms we are making to maintain and promote the private sector," noted the president.

He guaranteed the people of Western Kenya of his administration's unwavering stand in the revival programme.

The President, who addressed the nation after he held talks at State House in Nairobi with Western Kenya leaders yesterday morning, applauded the recovery process.

He lauded the work done by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, who are the joint-receivers of Pan Paper Mills, and the agreement reached with the strategic investor to purchase assets of the stalled plant.

The closure of the factory in 2009 meant economic disaster, particularly for thousands of employees and residents of region, turning the once-vibrant area into a 'ghost town'.

The factory owed its creditors Sh3 billion as at 2009 when it was closed. In 2010, the Government paid Sh1.2 billion to short-term lenders in an effort to have the factory revived. However, this was a false start and the firm was closed two weeks after reopening.