Prime Cabinet Secretary, Musalia Mudavadi, has assured long-suffering residents of Western Kenya sugar belt of the Government’s commitment to fix the sector.

If ever there was a statement made by the Government without any commitment to it, this declaration takes the biscuit. It has been made by four successive regimes since the 90’s. Mudavadi further stated there were no easy solutions to the long-standing challenges afflicting the sector. He was very eloquent about the problems bedeviling the sector.

A bit of flashback might jog the memory of the Prime Cabinet Secretary and give his utterances some perspective.

In 1993, a young Mudavadi was the Minister for Finance and the Chairman of the Parastatal Reform Programme Committee (PRPC) that was mandated to reform the parastatal sector including publicly-owned sugar factories.

He did nothing to reform those companies. All the warnings given then about the collapse of the sugar sector if nothing was done have now come to pass.

Then, Mudavadi had the power of the Moi regime and Kanu juggernaut behind him. Today, the Government’s power to push through projects against fierce opposition has been seriously circumscribed by a new governance dispensation that includes county governments.

It should also be remembered that when Mudavadi was the Finance Minister, all public sugar companies were in full flow, buttressing vibrant and prosperous communities in their ecosystems. And even then, a very elaborate plan was in place to reform all public sugar factories and turn them around.

Millions have been impoverished as a consequence of the death of the sugar sector in Western Kenya. Indeed, the now dead Mumias Sugar Company was a blue chip company, and one of the best run and most profitable companies in Kenya.

Fast forward. Mudavadi is now the Prime Cabinet Secretary, and all public sugar companies are either dead or in ICU. Instead of rolling his sleeves and starting the backbreaking work of reviving the sugar companies, he is making yet another commitment. He needs to give the long-suffering residents of Western Kenya a break!

It is eight months since the Government was formed. He needs to get down to work. There are four key issues to address.

First, the only reason why all attempts at reviving public sugar factories have been unsuccessful can only be sabotage. There are local sugar companies that are making profits, so why not the public sugar companies?

Still, the huge demand for sugar in Kenya is way beyond local production. The market is huge, apparently ring-fenced for politically favoured importers to make billions annually.

Secondly, the politics. Mudavadi should whip fellow politicians out of the sugar sector. These busybodies, whose livelihoods are elsewhere, do not give a damn whether the factories are operating or not. For how long will politicians be allowed to sabotage efforts to revive the sugar factories under the guise of“fighting for our people” as their constituents remain mired in poverty?

Thirdly, billions of shillings are going to be required for modernisation of these moribund and obsolete factories, as well as inputs for reviving cane growing in the entire region.

Yet, the Government continues to claim, falsely, that it can do this without privatizing the factories. It must. It has no choice. It has no money to do this. None. Unless the Government invites private capital into these sugar companies, they will never rise again. That’s a fact!

So, the sooner the Prime Cabinet Secretary starts having honest and difficult conversations with “his people,” the quicker the difficult measures that must be taken to revive the economy of the Western sugar belt can begin to be rolled out, and the more palatable they will become.

Mudavadi, you are aspiring to be President come 2032. Ease your path. Roll up your sleeves and get to work. Get these factories roaring again yp crush cane, farmers earning billions, all the towns in that ecosystem booming once more, and new spring in the step of your constituents.

Otherwise, after your tour of duty as Prime Cabinet Secretary and the factories are still moribund, “utawaambia watu nini?”