This archive report was first published on 18 June 2021.
On June 9, 2021, the Senate's Agriculture Committee directed the receiver manager to re-advertise the bid to salvage Mumias Sugar Company within 14 days.
However, activist Okiya Omtatah has moved to court seeking to temporarily suspend this directive, alleging that the receiver manager, Ponangipalli Venkata Ramana Rao, is engaged in a secretive bidding process to identify a strategic investor for the company.
According to Omtatah, Rao secretly invited eight investors, including Catalysis Group of Russia, Sarrai Group of Uganda, and Kibos Sugar and Devki Group from Kenya, to bid for the company.
But Omtatah claims that none of these bidders have the capacity to revive the company, and that Rao's actions are aimed at disposing of the company to his cronies for a song.
He also alleges that Rao has mismanaged the company's ethanol operations, shut them down in March 2021, and failed to plant sugarcane on 307 hectares of the Nucleus Estate, resulting in huge losses due to the deterioration of the assets.
Omtatah further claims that Rao has neglected many assets of Mumias Sugar Company, including the Nucleus Estate and machinery, posing a danger to the public.
He argues that the receiver manager has failed in his mission to protect the company's assets and maintain its operations, and that the public interest arises in how the receiver manager is running the company, given the fact that the land is idle and not being put to the purpose for which it was acquired.
