A tea company in Nyamira County is on the verge of collapsing due to huge losses recorded in the months of January and February following scarcity of firewood that runs most processing machines.
On Thursday, Kipkebe Limited managing director Ishmael Patel expressed his concern, terming the situation as dangerous since many operations in the company have literally come to a halt.
He said the company may be forced to significantly reduce its workforce as a way of reducing incurred expenses from the predicament.
“We have been recording losses for the last two months due to insufficient firewood. Most of our operations here depend on it for running. Our trees have not matured and it seems we had a poor timing in terms of planting,” Patel said.
“This means most of our workers may be forced home due to the predicament in bid to reduce further expenses and that is so bad,” he added.
He said that the company is only able to run one plant in comparison to five other sections in the process of tea leaves production.
“It is only one plant that is running as compared to six. And this one is operated on by electricity. We have always depended on firewood since it is cost effective,” Patel said.
Kipkebe Company is one of the private tea company’s in the region and is one of the leading tea leaves producers in the Western part of the country.