KISUMU, Kenya, Dec 23 — Chemelil Sugar Company has committed to pay Sh7.5 million weekly in a bid to clear farmers’ arrears amounting to Sh235 million.
The Company’s Acting Managing Director Gabriel Nyangweso said the arrears accrued from January to March.
Already, he said, the government is assisting the company to pay an earlier arrears of Sh230 million with the first batch of Sh138 million already paid.
“What the government has disbursed so far in payment of these early arrears amounts to 40 percent. To date we are still waiting for the government to release the remaining monies equivalent to 60 percent,” he said on Thursday.
“These arrears build up during the period we were in low production, part of it 2017, we were not in production for almost 8 months, the whole of 2019 we were not in production, these are the arrears that have accrued,” he added.
Nyangweso however said the company will be dealing with the arrears it accrued out of what the government promised to offset.
He said Chemelil has agreed with the farmers that the new arrears will be paid every week until the whole amount is exhausted.
“We agreed to pay this Sh7.5 million every week, and we started it from the month of October and we envisage to complete it within six months,” he said.
Nyangweso explained the firm was now paying staff full salaries as opposed to partial salaries as was the case in preceding months.
Depending on the production, Nyangweso said the suger processor will be able to pay arrears to the employees that stands at Sh800 million.
“As we are producing, we are now not accruing any arrears but we are working round the clock to repay the arrears that had been accrued before,” he said.
Nyangweso disclosed that through the Directorate of Sugarcane Development, the firm was lobbying the national government to settle the commitment to pay the remaining 60 per cent to enable the company pay farmers their arrears.
He hailed farmers for standing with the company during the hard times promising support to them in terms of promptly payment for cane delivered.
“I want to thank our staff, right now they have hope that the company is slowly but surely returning to its olden days,” he said.
Presently, he said, the factory is 100 per cent operational following successful maintenance.
“We have improved our production from an initial 30 percent to now we are doing 60 percent of our capacity. We are able to do about 2,000 tonnes of cane on a daily basis,” he said.
