In what could be seen as a ray of hope to hundreds of thousands of farmers who highly depend on sugarcane farming in Western Region, the troubles of Mumias Sugar Company may be far from over even after a Kakamega businessman was declared winner in the just concluded bidding exercise.
Tumaz and Tumaz Enterprise a Company associated with Mwale City investor Julius Mwale topped to win the bid to lease Mumias Sugar Company with Ksh27.6 billion over a 20 year lease period beating the rest of the bidders.
According to the receiver manager Ponangipali Rao a total of eight bidders had submitted their bids with top three bidding over Ksh10 billion.
However, those who have interacted with the businessman have their own reservations with some saying they have lost millions of shillings in Mwale City projects.
According to a resident of Kakamega who didn’t want to be mentioned, Mwale is known for selling hot air.
He wondered how someone who had no any background on sugar matters would quote so high yet even the billionaires like Jaswant Rai of West Kenya Sugar who has a rich understanding of the sector could not quote that kind of money.
“The list of creditors at Mwale City is too long that no sane person would want to take Mwale seriously” he said adding that if the businessman is unable to pay his own people who have either worked for or supplied Mwale City projects what would prevent him from using MSC for his own personal gains and leave it to die completely.
But some argue that since Mwale is a local he is best placed to understand the problems surrounding the sugarcane farmers hence given support he would turn around MSC.
