Sugar Hypocrisy is not about poor farmers

Recently, president Uhuru Kenyatta jetted into Uganda for a three day tour during which he and his team held bilateral discussions with the host nation. Of the many agreements reached in those engagements, the sugar one has apparently generated most concern. It seems to have become a sweet-sour deal for the Jubilee administration. Politicians have passed their verdict on the alleged deal one after the other. Some have raised genuine legitimate issues regarding the issue while others have simply asked questions that can only be termed as moronic and no other way.


Politically, the issue has given the opposition, particularly Cord, something to start working on after seemingly getting destroyed by Obama just before he left the country a few weeks ago. There had been fears that the Jubilee administration was making unfavorable inroads to the rich vote western region and therefore Cord must make maximum use of the issue whether the deal is actually harmful or not. It doesn't matter at all to them whether the poor farmer understands what it is about or doesn't; political gain must be made by all means. Jubilee must be made to lose the gains it had supposedly made in Western Kenya.


And, honestly that's what all this saga is about. It's not about you, the farmer, or you, the consumer. The same politicians who allowed the importation of sugar from Brazil years back are the ones making the loudest noise. Why was such noise not made then? Simple; it was not politically convenient. The very people who own the votes of the region had approved the deal. So, what difference does it make importing sugar from Uganda instead of Brazil? The difference is only economical in my opinion. It's much cheaper to bring sugar from Uganda than from the thousands of miles that Brazil is. It makes economic sense and I want to believe that that was the reasoning behind Uhuru Kenyatta and his team's decision to the deal.


Why then, are politicians so opposed to a deal that first, saves the taxpayer's money and secondly, is similar to the one in place that they had no problem with in the first place? What is the more pertinent question between what makes Kenyan sugar expensive and where we should import from to cater for our huge deficit? Why is it important for the politicians to make it look bad importing from Uganda? Methinks, some if most of the sugar being imported from Brazil belongs to the politicians and trying to shift to Uganda can not be good for their business. It's much easier to smuggle stolen sugar from other nations along the way because of the distance involved in travelling at sea than it would be when dealing with Uganda. Of course they are not going to relent until the deal is revoked. The problems that the sugar industry is facing in Kenya today are purely political. The industry has over the years been used to fund political campaigns and the reason why it's collapsing is because most times such moneys were not refunded. As we speak, rumours have it that certain politicians still owe some of the factories tens of millions of shillings. They haven't paid and I doubt we would have known about it nor would it have been paid if they were in government.


There's only one reason why no one had seemed interested in solving the sugar problem in Kenya until Uhuru Kenyatta embarked on a mission to jumpstart the sector. Its total collapse would make so much economic sense to the businesses of the political cartels in the sector. President Kenyatta himself got the guts to solve the problem because his campaign did not benefit from the merchants. He had his own money for the campaign. That's why they are up in arms. That's the reason they must blackmail the president using the western votes to arm-twist him into submission.


There are more urgent questions that I would love to know the answers to. Why is Kenyan sugar expensive? How possible is it, that Sugar processed in Brazil - thousands of miles away, is transported to Kenya, packaged and yet manages to be cheaper than the one we produce here in Kenya? Why is no one talking about pricing and cost of production. I don't seem to understand how this is possible. While the politicians are busy complaining about the cheap Ugandan sugar and closing their eyes to the one from Brazil (because they own it) the ordinary Kenyan complains about the expensive Kenyan sugar. I have the feeling that the feeling that our sugar is deliberately priced that way in order to allow the cartels to thrive in the business.


A politician at a function recently wondered how we're going to be sure that the sugar we import as pre the deal will be Ugandan. I ask, how sure are we that the one we import today is Brazilian? Do these politicians know something we don't know? Your guess is as good as mine.....


This political nonsense you hear now is not about you the consumer nor about the farmer in the sugar belt. Nay, it's about the politicians, their welfare, their profits and more importantly, their desire for power. The sugar deal is actually not bad for the sugar cane farmers; it's bad for the cartels, for the Brazil sugar importers, for the beneficiaries of campaign funds. This deal is meant to cushion the consumer in the meantime as the government embarks on a mission to increase our capacity to produce more at a cheaper cost.