Nzoia Sugar Company acting Managing Director Hezron Kotut has launched a massive cane planting in the company’s nuclears estate to boost the raw material for the company.
Speaking during the exercise Kotut said currently in the country there is a shortage of cane, a situation being experienced in most of the milling companies saying in their own efforts they plan to ensure they plant enough in the expansive nuclears in order to curb the shortage.
Kotut said Kenya consumes about 1 million metric tonnes of sugar but only six hundred is produced saying they plan tap in the gap in order to increase their production to the market.
However, he raised an alarm over unscrupulous business dealers who are importing sugar from abroad and using their brand to package the sugar and sell to unsuspecting consumers saying more cautionary measures need to be put in place to secure them.
His sentiments were echoed by workers’ chairman Bernard Yaola who said they decided to join hands in planting cane so that in a few months ahead it will bail them out.
He further called upon the government to license millers to import sugar so that they can breach the gap by helping the workers and all the other dependents of the factories around the country in case they cannot produce at a particular moment.