Nzoia Sugar to undergo two-month maintenance at Ksh.216M

Nzoia Sugar has announced that the factory will undergo extensive maintenance works starting this month.

The maintenance will cost a total of Ksh.216 million; spare parts for the exercise have been imported from abroad at a cost of Ksh.150 million with the remaining amount going towards payment of the engineers and experts.

The maintenance will improve the operations at the factory which has not been making profits for the last 6 years due to inefficiencies and frequent machine breakdowns that increase the cost of production.

Acting Managing Director Chrispine Ogutu hopes that the improved efficiency will go a long way in helping them pay monies owed to cane farmers that currently stands at Ksh.789 million.

The maintenance of the factory is scheduled to begin on May 13, 2022 for two months, during which the factory will remain closed.

“When a factory is no maintained, the inefficiencies and the frequent breakdowns increase the cost of production. It reached a time when our cost of production was Ksh.8,500 per 50kg bag of sugar, yet we’re selling the same at Ksh.5,300,” said Mr. Ogutu.

“So you can see that we were making losses, and that explains why we have accumulated arrears. Now, instead of continuing like that, we have realized that if we do the maintenance, then we will increase our recoveries and reduce our cost of production. In that way, we will now be able to pay the debts that have accumulated.”