The Muhoroni Sugar Company in Muhoroni, Kisumu County, has partially cleared its debt to farmers as it seeks to fully revive its operations.
The company's General Manager Nahashon Osieko on Thursday said the company has paid Sh180 million in arrears accumulated in the 2017/2018 financial year.
This, however, still leaves the miller with a debt of Sh50 million for sugarcane delivered by farmers between November and December 2019.
"The money was released in the last week of December. We have crossed the year with no pending arrears," he said in an interview with Standard.
However, he noted that the company is still ailing and unable to crush cane in its full capacity due to shortage of cane, caused by poaching by other millers in the region.
He said the company's 16,000 hectares of cane have not been able to sustain it, resulting in it producing only 50 percent of what it should, an equivalent of 1,100 tones daily.
"Our main problem is rival competitors who poach our cane. This is because they invested in expansion and setting up of new factories in the Nyando sugar belt but did not invest in cane production," he added.
Osieko remarked that at times, the miller is forced to accumulate cane for three days before crushing it, with Kibos Sugar being named as one of the cane poachers.