Defiant rival sugar taskforce to engage Parliament, Senate

KISUMU, KENYA: Farmers behind a rival sugar taskforce have said they will present their findings to the National Assembly and Senate should the Government decline to receive it.

Leaders of the Kenya National Alliance of Sugarcane Farmers formed to “incorporate farmers’ views in the fresh efforts at reviving the industry” said they will use parliamentary and senate committees to have their views included in policy formulation.

These plans follow recent remarks by Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mwangi Kiunjuri that he would neither engage the group nor receive their report.

Kiunjuri accused the taskforce, which has been running alongside a Government instituted one he chairs, of frustrating efforts geared at salvaging the collapsing industry. The CS claimed the outfit had been sponsored by individuals out to frustrate government efforts.

Most of the private millers have openly opposed zoning of the sugar belts and are said to have a hand in the parallel taskforce.

Union leaders of Kenya Sugarcane and Allied Products and the Kenya Sugarcane Growers Association Atyang’ Atiang’ and Richard Ogendo described as ‘inconsequential’ the remarks by Mr Kiunjuri.

“Kiunjuri is a public servant and he cannot refuse to listen to us because we are legitimately registered to push for the interest of the farmers who have been sidelined in the Government taskforce,” said Ogendo.

He said they would take the report to the ministry and if it failed to act on it, they would push it to the legislative houses.

“We are also going to mobilise thousands of farmers to march to State House so that the President who declined our request to be included in the National Sugar Taskforce can have the report and see what the farmer has to say about saving the industry,” said Atiang.

The parallel taskforce chaired by former Kenya Sugar Board director Saulo Busolo is expected to wind up its national consultations with farmers in Tana River today before retreating to draft its report.

Busolo said during a consultative meeting in Migori last week that they were not opposed to the government task force but were conducting the parallel public participation and reviews “to complement the work of the task force formed by government.”

Busolo has also trashed claims that the outfit was being funded by private millers opposed to zoning of the sugar belts and sugar import barons out to stifle efforts to resuscitate the industry.

“It is the same Government which licenses the so-called barons who are killing the industry and we are out here talking to farmers because we want to tame these barons.

The Government taskforce was tasked to craft policy, legal and institutional reforms needed to turn around fortunes of the industry; unearth past, present and future challenges of the industry and table recommendations; relook the funding mechanism and cane pricing formula; and relook the taxation regime and propose new importation laws.

As part of its duties, it was to collate previous reports, including one presented to President Uhuru Kenyatta by governors last year. The committee was then to invite sector experts to input their opinions, then visit the factories for assessment and consult leaders and sugar