Energy Cabinet Secretary Opiyo Wandayi has defended the government's decision to lease ailing state-owned sugar mills to private investors arguing that the move will boost the industry and bring an end to decades of financial losses.
While speaking in Bolo Catholic Church in Nyakach Constituency, Kisumu County, Wandayi conceded that public-owned sugar mills have been in a vicious cycle of losses that required constant bailouts from the government but never attained sustainability.
The initiative, Wandayi emphasized, aims at putting end to the loss-making cycle and ensuring prompt payments to sugarcane farmers and factory workers. "For years, our state-owned sugar factories have been operating in massive losses.
Year after year, the government injects cash, but a few months later, they become loss-making ventures again.
