Over 20,000 sugarcane farmers through their representatives from Busia and Kakamega Counties, contracted to supply cane to Mumias Sugar, are up in arms against illegal plans to allow West Kenya/Kabras Sugar to take control of Ethanol and Cogen plants at Mumias Sugar’s factory complex.
The farmers have threatened to go to the streets in demonstrations and also ensure that the operations of Jaswant Rai Group’s sugar mills at Olepito in Busia County and kabras in Kakamega County are completely paralyzed until when the group completely stops meddling into the Mumias Sugar business.
This follows recent reports that the Jaswant Rai had been through highly questionable means been granted permission to control and operate Mumias Sugar’s Ethanol and Cogen plants immediately after President William Ruto presided over the historic event of awarding the company’s cane farmers bonuses for cane delivered, the first of its kind in the country’s sugar industry on January 20th, 2025 at Mumias Sugar factories complex.
Through a letter dated 23rd January 2025, addressed to the company’s Operations Manager Stephen Kihumba and signed by the legal officer for the Reciever Manager, the letter read in part, “on the instructions of the Reciever Manager, this is to request you to please allow West Kenya officials unhindered access to the two plants to enable them to complete their assignments”.
The farmers’ spokesman Jacob Shikanda said: “We cannot and will never allow a stranger who has nearly destroyed the country’s sugar industry for personal gain to set foot at Mumias Sugar. Allowing him to operate these plants means the killing of our ultra-modern diffuser processing facility and production of sugarcane by farmers in Kakamega and Busia Counties.”
Mr. Shikanda continued: “The Jaswant Rai Group is a dangerous ogre that has tried to kill Mumias Sugar through endless baseless court battles that brought its operations to a complete standstill for years at the dire expense of sugarcane farmers who had invested hundreds of millions of shillings in their sugarcane farms until when President Ruto intervened. Now they are backstabbing his good intensions for the farmers.”
He said it beats any common sense and extremely dangerous to allow a rival or competing entity like West Kenya/Kabras Millers to own and operate a part or parts of the giant miller Mumias Sugar when the same group is responsible for the sugarcane poaching crisis, especially from farmers contracted to supply the raw material to Mumias Sugar that initially led the company’s operations to grind to a standstill after being completely starved off the raw material to keep going.
Speaking to the Media in Mumias the farmers declared: “If Jaswant wants to operate ethanol and Cogen production, then he must start his own using the hundreds of billions of shillings he has made in the last few years through highly questionable sugar activities and get the raw material from his factories in Kabras, Olepito and Sukari in South Nyanza otherwise will ensure that we completely paralyze these entities for good.
The farmers’ stand and sentiments were echoed by Mumias East MP Peter Salasya and the Western Development Initiative Association (WEDIA) among many others who are opposed to the illegal move by the Jaswant Rai Group.
They said that the move had been secretly or covertly executed by a highly placed and powerful official at Statehouse who is using his powerful position and close influence to President Ruto to effect highly suspect, irregular, corrupt and illegal deals for personal financial gain.
The WEDIA boss Mr. Joseph Barasa said: “According to reliable sources, he (Jaswant Rai Group) has pocketed a very powerful Statehouse official whom he is using to confuse and mislead President Ruto. People are questioning the speed in which this has been done considering that, it is hardly a week since the President issued bonuses to farmers whose source is still being questioned to date.”
Mr. Barasa said that the people and farmers of Busia and Kakamega counties who enjoyed the fruits of Mumias Sugar since its inception, had to suffer for more than ten years after it went under because of Jaswant Rai who initiated cane poaching that put the last nail to its coffin.
“Until recently when President Ruto came to their rescue. The country witnessed when he issued marching orders to Jaswat Rai and even went ahead to tell him ‘Mambo ni matatu,’ he said.
The WEDIA chairman said that this was after Jaswant had held the factory hostage through so many endless crippling court cases querying why President Ruto should forget so fast the fact that Jaswant Rai is a renowned Sugar mafia smuggling cartel operative who in 2018 hit the national media headlines when he smuggled into the country sugar worth hundreds of millions of shillings some which was allegedly laced with mercury impounded at his company’s Pan-Paper warehouses in Webuye Bungoma County.
He said that as a matter of fact sugar millers like Nzoia, Chemilil, Sony, Transmara, Kibos, Butali and Muhoroni are not ready to do any business with the Jaswant Group are totally averse to doing any business with the Group like supplying bagasse because the group has the notoriety of poaching sugarcane from their contracted farmers.
Salasya on his part supported the farmers’ and residents threats saying that a rogue operative whose deadly intentions are to paralyze and kill any competition to remain a dominant monopoly in the country’s sugar industry must be resisted at all costs whether he is a powerful well connected billionaire or trillionaire to boot.
“Right now the same group is controlling more than 45 per cent of the country’s sugar supplies market after crippling the operations of most of its competitors but greed is propelling the group on despite the un-reported cheap sugar smuggled into the market by them and packaged in packages of their local brands.”I will mobilise not only sugarcane farmers and millers, but also consumers to completely paralyze the existing operations of the Jaswant Group, if he doesn’t stop meddling into the affairs of Mumias Sugar “, he said.
The MP also vowed that he was going to mobilize fellow legislators not only from Kakamega and Busia counties, but also from other sugarcane producing counties and residents to resist the reported plan for the Jaswant Group to get a foothold in Mumias Sugar.
He said: “We are also going to pressurize the Kenya Sugar Board (KSB) and other government agencies to immediately cancel any businesses licenses issued to do any business in Kenya not only in the sugar industry but also all other areas of business the group is involved because of its deadly predatory tendencies against competitors.