For a long time, the sugar industry supported thousands of families in the Western and Nyanza regions. Mumias Sugar Company alone was the fulcrum around which Western Kenya’s economy revolved.

However, years of plunder and mismanagement have ruined the industry in the Western region. The key sugar millers in the region are sagging under heavy debts, particularly owed to the government, while others cannot pay farmers on time. Some farmers have given up, uprooting their sugarcane to cultivate other crops.

Indeed, the mismanagement of the sugarcane farmers has thrown hundreds of families into penury due to delayed payments. Others have abandoned the crop due to the high cost of inputs that make sugarcane farming unsustainable and unable to bring good returns on investment.

Consistent efforts by the government to bail out the industry have borne no fruit due to mismanagement. Elected leaders have also used the sector as a tool for political mobilisation at the expense of providing a cure for the ailing industry.

Politicians ignore the plight of farmers once they are elected only to revive the subject when seeking a new mandate. That is why our attention has been drawn to the latest statements from President William Ruto as his toured Western Kenya. He pledged to streamline the sector by writing off debts, leasing factories, and ensuring good management of the millers.

And the government has announced that it will write off more than one billion shillings in debts owed by State-owned millers. According to the President, the main problem facing the industry is lack of prompt payments to farmers and workers, and paying off accrued debts.

To revive the sector, Ruto maintained, the government must implement a programme of privatising all State-owned sugar factories, including Nzoia, Muhoroni, Chemilil, and Sony, adding that the bonus payout pledged to sugarcane farmers will be extended to all government-owned millers.

Kenya, he added, will be a sugar-exporting nation by 2027, due to more affordable fertilisers and a raft of reform measures.

This is not the first time the presidency has promised to revive the sector. This kind of retail populism should end and Ruto should rise up and fix the sugar industry to alleviate the suffering of farmers.