Sony cane farmers stage demo over Sh2.6 billion arrears

Sony Sugar farmers bid goodbye to 2018 with demonstrations at the factory premises over delayed payments of over Sh512 million for last year alone.

Total arrears run into over Sh2.6 billion. The irate farmers forced the company’s acting managing director, Bernard Otieno, and the board chairman, Owino Likowa, to call a crisis meeting. Led by Kenya Sugarcane Federation officials Joseph Adongo, John Odondi, and Secretary General Ezra Okoth Olodi, the growers demanded immediate payment as they marched to the Mr Otieno’s office.

The managing director and chairman were reportedly in a closed-door meeting before the board sought refuge in a guest house. But the infuriated farmers pursued them and ejected them – a move that saw Otieno threaten to resign. The farmers said they had not been paid their dues even after delivering their produce to the miller from March to December (2018).

Otieno said he was preparing statements to offset the arrears.

Mr Likowa told the farmers that the miller had prepared statements and was waiting for Treasury to offset the cane arrears of Sh2.6 billion. “We have gone to Treasury to meet Rotich to tell us why farmers have not been paid as the President said,” Mr Okoth, Mr Odondi, and Mr Adongo said.

President Uhuru Kenyatta directed the ministries of Agriculture and Treasury to pay the arrears on October 20, but the farmers have not been paid.

This even after millers were given almost two weeks to submit statements for verification before the State settled the debts. “We want the sugar millers to move with speed or tell us why they cannot effect the presidential decree,” said Kenya Sugarcane and Allied Products Chairman Charles Atyang Atyang.

Interviews with some millers revealed that Treasury CS Henry Rotich had sent his officials to verify payment statements prepared by the millers. The Sony finance boss, Peter Otieno, said the company owed farmers Sh512 million in arrears.

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