“Awarding new operating licenses would be more appropriate than privatisation” (Kenya Sugar Millers Association).
Inefficiencies, losses, and payment defaults eventually forced Kenya to review its model of regional state-owned sugar companies, which are accumulating considerable arrears to small farmers. The government is looking at privatising the public sugar monopoly to avoid bankruptcy, but industry professionals do not seem to agree with this course of action.
20/03/2020 at 17h15, by Africa Business+
After invoking the sector’s safeguarding clause with its 21 partners in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) in 2003, Kenya managed to limit imports of refined sugar to 350,000 tonnes per year, almost half of the annual local demand of its 50 million inhabitants. The country, which has the largest economy in East Africa, then obtained an extension of the derogation allowing the taxation of imports to February 2019, before extending it to 2021.