Sugar wars: Litany of sweet-tasting lies and propaganda, nothing more
What you need to know:
- The sugar wars sparked by President Uhuru Kenyatta’s deal or non-deal with his Ugandan counterpart Yoweri Museveni has generated enough heat to feed the national power grid for the next decade, but unfortunately, little light is coming through.
- President Kenyatta scored a clear own goal the moment news broke out that he had struck a deal to allow imports of cheaper Ugandan sugar into Kenya, in exchange for Kenyan dairy products getting access into the Ugandan market.
- The only winners in such scenarios are the untouchable sugar barons, the wealthy and powerful commodity traders who have managed to insert themselves into every administration and even dictate government policy to their own advantage.
I take my tea with two teaspoons of sugar. Level, not heaped. During that calming breakfast moment, the last thing I need is the din of that fratricidal Jubilee-Cord/Kenyatta-Odinga blood feud to spoil the rest of my day.
Unfortunately that is all we have been treated to in the past week. The sugar wars sparked by President Uhuru Kenyatta’s deal or non-deal with his Ugandan counterpart Yoweri Museveni has generated enough heat to feed the national power grid for the next decade, but unfortunately, little light is coming through.
nstead of sober, thoughtful, rational discussion, the debate has degenerated into the usual vile insults, propaganda and lies typical of our political discourse.
What seems clear is that the government’s inept messaging on the issue handed Mr Raila Odinga free propaganda points that the opposition leader was quick to exploit to the maximum.
Our ailing sugar industry is an emotive subject in the populous western Kenya sugar-belt. Any sugar import deals that threaten to undermine the struggling factories and long-suffering farmers will immediately provoke a fierce firestorm, difficult to contain.
President Kenyatta scored a clear own goal the moment news broke out that he had struck a deal to allow imports of cheaper Ugandan sugar into Kenya, in exchange for Kenyan dairy products getting access into the Ugandan market.
Adding fuel to the fire was the dairy products angle. The Kenyatta family already has a stranglehold hold on the industry in Kenya and would be a direct beneficiary of enhanced access to the Uganda market.
With one stroke of the pen, the considerable investment he had put in wooing western Kenya to his side went up in smoke, obviously to the opposition’s advantage. Yet a closer look might reveal that a lot of the brouhaha was based perceptions rather than reality.
Does Kenya have a sugar deficit and thus must import to meet local demand? Check.
Does Kenya already allow sugar from Uganda under regional trade pacts? Check.
Did Kenya need to unlock Ugandan restrictions on Kenyan dairy products? Check.
So what’s the point in contention?
The bitter aftertaste reflects more the nature of our politics rather than any real dispute. It is also a reflection of disastrous official communications that to this stage cannot tell us clearly whether there was a deal or not.
Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs insists that President Kenyatta did not sign any trade deal on sugar, milk or anything else during his State visit to Uganda.
But then, have President Kenyatta himself and his Deputy William Ruto been on the stumpings defending a deal that never was?
Even the government’s social media warriors and political hangers-on have been all over the place defending the deal. They have been going further to advance the argument that a Kenyan sugar industry that cannot compete on efficiency and prices should be allowed to die and not forever seek protection.
And that has come with the lie that allowing ‘cheap’ Ugandan sugar into the market will mean better retail prices for Kenyan consumers. Tell that to the birds.
The only winners in such scenarios are the untouchable sugar barons, the wealthy and powerful commodity traders who have managed to insert themselves into every administration and even dictate government policy to their own advantage.
Hopefully we will soon tone down the theatrics and deal with the real issues. The biggest threat to the Kenyan sugar farmer is not modest Ugandan imports, but inefficient sugar companies and an irredeemably corrupt regulatory regime.
The sugar that might come in officially from Uganda is small fry compared to the vast amounts from South America and Asia smuggled in under the guise of Comesa sugar. And there’s still more trucked in by land from the Somali port of Kismayu, part of the Kenya Defence Forces-Al Shabaab trade partnership.
Unchecked corruption is the biggest problem we have. Until the untouchables are fought with more than just rhetoric, our sugar wars will never end.
Meanwhile, if I were a sugarcane farmer, I would uproot my crop and invest in dairy cows, hoping that Brookside and Tuzo come calling en-route to Uganda.
[email protected]. Twitter: @MachariaGaitho
