Mumias Sugar Company has been the greatest threat to the Rai family as far as sugar production is concerned.
Also good to note is that MSC is the only sugar factory in Kenya which has the modern diffuser technology hence having the capacity to crush about 1.8 million tonnes of sugarcane annually.
MSC also has the capacity to produce a total production of 250, O00 metric tons of sugar annually translating to about half of Kenya's total production which stands at 600,000 metric tons.
With all the facts as they are, you will now understand why the efforts to revive MSC had to take this long to an extend of even canceling the tender which had been awarded earlier to Billionaire Narendra Raval of Devki Steels by the receiver manager Ponangipalli Rao before some politicians including Kakamega Senator Cleophas Malala objected.
So with the current state of affairs where many farmers have abandoned cane farming mostly due to frustrations of either delayed harvesting or payment and also not forgetting the free market push, it will be a toll order for other players whose production capacity is way below 3000 TCD if MSC roars back to life.
The other factor that places other sugar manufacturers back to the drawing board is the winning of the bid to lease MSC for 20 years which has just been awarded to a Ugandan based Sarrai Group a firm fully owned by the Rai family.
So from this whole scenario the person who stands to benefit if I was to be asked is the farmer but as to whether the benefits shall be long-term is a topic for another day.
The reason I am saying this is because the Rai family who are basically commanding the sugar industry in East Africa will be burning the midnight oil to ensure that the diffuser gets adequate supply of raw material something that will only be realised with the sourcing of sugarcane from far and wide hence reaching those farmers who at this stage feel abandoned by the current players.
Another crucial aspect is how to win back the confidence of those farmers who had already quit cane farming or even convince new ones to start planting cane not forgetting the many cases of delayed harvests and other frustrations that have been the order of the day.
So for Sarrai to convince us that this is not another gimmick similar to the one which was applied to Panpaper Mills it should come up with a comprehensive sugarcane development program and not just to sit and randomly source for the raw material.
Sarrai should also come out and clear the air from allegations by some critics who sees its main agenda as just having the quest to use MSC to kill those perceived as competitors and kill it completely too.
In his Statement on 22nd December 2021, the Sarrai's Chairperson Sarbjit Singh Rai said and I quote, " Sarrai Group has no association with entities under Rai Group, including West Kenya Sugar Company".
However what Sarbjit is not telling us is that Jaswant Sigh Rai is his brother and that Jaswant owns two sugar factories under Sarrai Group namely Kinyara and Kiryandongo including Kenyan based West Kenya, Olepito and Sukari Sugar factories while Sarbjit himself owns Hoima Sugar in Uganda among other companies with routes to other countries e.g Malawi also under Sarrai.
In a deal that saw Kenya and Uganda sign a pact for the latter to export sugar to Kenya, it was established that Hoima and Kinyara topped the list of exporters now begging the question as to whether the bidding process was free and fair or it is just another way of the Rai family trying to force its way to capture and monopolize the sugar sector?
