Kakamega Governor unveils team to look into stalled Sh300 million tea factory

Kakamega Governor Fernandes Barasa addressing the media at Kakamega County Referral Hospital on April 14, 2023. [Benjamin Sakwa, Standard]

The county government of Kakamega plans to revive the stalled Kakamega Global Tea factory at Madala village in Shinyalu sub-county.

Governor Fernandes Barasa is in the process of constituting a project implementation committee that will review the project and submit a detailed report on the revival of the Sh300 million factory.

The committee is expected to table the report in six months to pave the way for construction works of the stalled plant next year.

In the current financial year, the project was allocated Sh100 million. The tea factory was among the former governor Wycliffe Oparanya's flagship projects.

Oparanya initiated the factory in 2017 and re-launched it two times before he exited the office. No meaningful development has been undertaken at the site save for the fencing of the land. Overgrown grass now covers the compound.

Mr Barasa has picked his deputy Ayub Savula to lead efforts to revive the factory which has become an eyesore in the area.

Residents have held demonstrations before to push the county government to do something about the factory which promised job opportunities for them.

The governor says he is committed to reviving the factory which will improve the economic status of the people of Shinyalu.

"The team has six months to write a proposal to the Cabinet, come up with a supplementary budget, conduct public participation, and observe all required legislation in order to revive the factory," said Barasa.

The project sits on an 8-acre parcel. We need to fast-track this conversation because the people of Shinyalu have been yearning for this project," said the governor.

The Standard has established that the Tea company will be formed on a hybrid basis incorporating equity collected from tea farmers while the county government will also pump in some money.

Mr Savula noted that the company will depend on the perceived highest tea-producing constituencies of Shinyalu, Ikolomani, and Khwisero.

"We look forward to increasing tea bushes in the three constituencies to improve efficiency," he said.

"Kenya is known for producing purple tea, which is drought-resistant and draws good prices in the international market and we are going to provide farmers with seedlings and other required necessities so that by early January next year the factory will be up and running," said Savula.

The factory was initially designed to run with two parallel processing machines for black and orthodox tea.

However, the situation saw the Kenya Tea Development Authority (KTDA) demanding the county to produce at least five million tonnes of tea annually before it could be licenced.

By 2020 the county had already spent Sh25 million in tea development with over 375,000 seedlings distributed to farmers.