Despite its towering presence as one of the country’s foremost sugar producers and an engine of regional development in the western sugar belt, West Kenya Sugar Company now finds itself at the centre of a growing labour storm.
Dozens of workers, primarily from its agriculture section, have been abruptly dismissed under contested circumstances, prompting state intervention and igniting deeper scrutiny into the company’s human resource operations.
The Kakamega-based conglomerate, known for producing the popular Kabras Sugar brand, is one of the most expansive private sugar firms in East Africa, operating three major factories and employing around 2,000 people.
Its investments in rural infrastructure, farmer extension services, and value addition have earned it a reputation as a pillar of agri-industrial transformation. However, behind its corporate sheen, recent developments expose fractures in how it treats the very workforce that drives its operations.
At the centre of the dispute is a mass termination incident involving workers dismissed without formal hearing or notice, many of them long-serving employees in the cane production chain.
A formal labour dispute has now been filed through the Ministry of Labour, triggering conciliation proceedings overseen by the Kakamega County Labour Office.
Affected parties are scheduled to appear for a joint session on August 13, 2025, following an official appointment of a conciliator to mediate the matter.
The stated justification for the dismissals revolves around so-called ‘overlaps’ data discrepancies allegedly caused by repeated or duplicated field attendance records.
However, affected workers and industry insiders point to a malfunctioning workforce management system, colloquially known as the “digicane system,” which automates labour tracking across vast plantations.
The system, they argue, suffers from unresolved technical errors, misattributing innocent mistakes or software glitches as grounds for disciplinary action.
What is most concerning is the speed and severity with which these terminations are executed, with little to no room for explanation, internal appeal, or procedural fairness.
In an environment where workers depend almost entirely on these jobs for their livelihoods, such abrupt loss of employment carries devastating socio-economic consequences.
Even more troubling is the growing perception that human resource outsourcing models, as seen through West Kenya’s partnership with Consolidated Human Resource Solutions, may be insulating the company from accountability.
The use of third-party contractors for staffing has blurred the lines of responsibility, with workers often caught between corporate bureaucracy and disinterested intermediaries.
These arrangements, though common in private agribusiness, risk undermining workers’ rights when not properly regulated or overseen.
All this comes against the backdrop of West Kenya Sugar Company’s aggressive expansion and diversification strategy.
With a current milling capacity of 5,000 tonnes of cane per day, the company has invested substantially in local supply chains, including seedcane distribution, subsidised fertilisers, and farmer training programs.
It has also ventured into value addition, with a new distillery plant expected to transform molasses by-products into ethanol and other alcohol-based commodities.
But these advances mask an uncomfortable reality of growth without equitable labour protections risks entrenching structural injustice.
While capital investment and operational efficiency are necessary to remain competitive in a liberalized sugar market, they must not come at the expense of fundamental labour rights.
Workers, particularly in rural industrial settings, remain vulnerable to abrupt policy shifts, opaque disciplinary processes, and technological errors when adequate checks and balances are not in place.
If left unaddressed, the current dispute may trigger a wider re-evaluation of labour practices across the sugar industry, especially in privately owned agribusinesses with dominant market positions.
The disaffected parties are now calling on the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, the Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE), and the Central Organization of Trade Unions (COTU) to move beyond formality and exercise their mandates with urgency.
There is growing pressure on the Labor Commissioner to thoroughly investigate the circumstances of the terminations and assess the legality of using flawed digital systems as a basis for disciplinary action.
At the same time, COTU, Kenya’s umbrella workers’ union, is being urged to take a more proactive stance in defending vulnerable agricultural workers, particularly those employed through third-party contractors with ambiguous legal protections.
Labor rights groups are also appealing to the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) to examine the broader implications of such practices, which they argue amount to systemic labor abuse hidden behind corporate structure and technology.
“Hello Cyprian. Please hide my identity. We are facing serious mistreatment here at West Kenya Sugar Company, and nobody is speaking for us. Several of us in the agriculture section have been dismissed without any fair warning or hearing. The reason they are giving is “overlaps” in our work records, but this is all coming from a system that is not working properly. The Digicane system is supposed to be tracking our attendance and field activities, but it keeps messing up. It logs duplicates, glitches out, and then they use that data against us as if we were cheating the company. We do not control this system. It is not even explained to us how it works. We just report to work and do our jobs. Some of the names affected include Milton Wanami, Mereyline Munyolo, Convic Mutonyi, Elevine Luleyi, Timothy Ekina, Bonface Masika, Emelda Wayiera—just to name a few. But there are many more of us who are now jobless because of this. Some have worked for years. One mistake in the system and you are out. No warning, no process, nothing. What is worse is that we are not even directly employed by West Kenya Sugar. We are under a contractor called Consolidated Human Resource Solutions. So when you are fired, you do not even know who to turn to. West Kenya says talk to the contractor. The contractor says it is the company’s decision. You are caught in between. No accountability. Now the Labour Office in Kakamega has been involved. They have called for a joint conciliation meeting on August 13th. The Ministry of Labour has sent a letter. But even with that, we are scared this will be swept under the rug. We have seen it before. Big companies like this one can silence these things. All we are asking is for justice. We work hard. We support our families with these jobs. And now, because of a broken system and outsourced human resources, we are treated like we do not matter. We hope now that this issue has been exposed, organisations like the Ministry of Labour, COTU, the Labour Commissioner, and even the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights can step in. We need someone to actually protect us. Not just write letters and walk away.”
