Hundreds of employees at Sony Sugar Company are bracing for massive sackings following a change in management under a lease agreement.
A redundancy circular sent to the government and union officials has triggered anxiety among staff, who are now pleading with the state to broker a humane layoff.
The new leaseholder, Busia Sugar Industries, which took over the operation of the Awendo-based sugar mills from the State’s semi-autonomy parastatal kit, has vowed to reduce the number of workers to revive the struggling factory, which has operated at huge financial deficit.
Sony, like the other three former partially government-owned sugar factories, have for a long period of time operated in a huge financial deficit, with the government intervening not once to help it continue operating.
Sony alone, the National treasury once paid farmers’ arrears amounting to over Sh500 million. The amount was part of the over Sh800 million accumulated debt arrears that the government agreed to clear on behalf of the cash-strapped semi-autonomous plant.
This gesture also extended to other three semi-autonomous factories and was meant to revive and boost the operations and income of the factories, but all these efforts did not yield any success, leaving farmers and workers exposed to loss of income and looming sackings.
Pushed to the wall, the State, having thought carefully between complete closures and selling the factories, arrived at leasing them for a period of 30 years to serious private investors.
Currently, workers at Sony, Chemelil, Nzoia and Muhoroni are going through serious mental torture, thinking of how they would manage their lives and support their families after the premature job loss.
KNA caught up with some of these workers at Sony factory grounds who poured out their hearts on their predicaments with regard to the impending layoffs.
For Joseph Oyiera, this is the worst experience a human being should not face in his or her lifetime, especially in the current precarious economic times. He says it is better to be without a job from the start rather than losing one prematurely that you have depended on for many years.
“The sackings would make some of us go to our graves early enough following the amount of stress that we would face as we struggle to take care of ourselves and our families,” he told the KNA crew during an interview.
Ms Caroline Otieno, a staff at the company’s finance office, stated that she thought all would be well after the Kenya Kwanza government made efforts to clear salary arrears of workers in the past, only to be told that the factory was being leased to a private investor who has no job for many of the workers.
“I have a big family to take care of. I also have a big bank loan to service but no other means to take care of all these,” rued Ms. Otieno, who added that she lost her husband many years ago, leaving her to single-handedly raise her family.
However, while commenting on the imminent job loss, former County Executive Committee (CEC) member in charge of health and sugar cane farmer, Dr Isca Oluoch said that the sugar stakeholders should find amicable solutions and help the soon-to-be-affected employees integrate into their new social life.
Even though the company is now in the sole hands of a private investor, Oluoch said that all stakeholders in the company should be able to receive active and agreeable terms on the way forward to address the concerns of the affected employees.
She said that the company should prioritize the need for active participation and empathize with the soon-to-be-jobless employees to enable them to accept their fate.
“Change is part of life, especially when new management takes over, but that should not be used to victimise employees who have given everything and worked all their lives tirelessly to make the factory what it is today,” she told KNA in Migori town.
Dr Oluoch noted that if the employees are laid off without proper guidelines of societal integration, the majority will have mental illness that may trigger depression, hypertension and other stress-related diseases
Currently, it is not clear how the company plans to pay all the pending payments, both for employees, sugarcane farmers and business personnel, and Dr Oluoch says that this should be fast-tracked to help ease the pain of the affected personnel and all the factory stakeholders.
“If employees are to be laid off, then the new management of Sony Sugar should tell them when they will be paid to help them plan for their future”, she said.
While the redundancy announcement assures employees, they will receive all entitlements under Section 40 of the Employment Act and applicable collective bargaining agreements (CBAs), it provides little comfort to workers facing an uncertain future.
“Yes, we want to cut costs, generate more profits and return our sugar mill to its lost glory, but we should also portray empathy to those who have dedicated their lives to serving this great company, she noted.
The Kenya National Federation of Sugarcane Farmers Union (KNFSFU) South Nyanza branch, Argwings Adongo explained that the majority of residents in Awendo Sub-County had to forfeit their ancestral lands when the company was established in 1979 to be part of the Sony sugar nuclear plantation, and with that, they had to be employed in the company.
He pointed out that laying off these kinds of people will not only create mental torture and economic implications but also portray that the sweat of their grandfathers to relinquish their lands was all for nothing.
Furthermore, Adongo disclosed that the majority of these employees are the breadwinners in their families and losing a job may trigger a lot of negative vices like increased crime activities within the sugar belt region.
“A lot of these employees have people that depend on them either directly or indirectly, and cutting short their employment opportunities will not only affect their families but also trigger a negative chain reaction from the surrounding communities”, he said.
Sony employees worked overboard to ensure that the plant gained its former status amid a myriad of problems ranging from serious cane poaching by other private factories, unmotivated employees, persistent breakdown of machines due to lack of maintenance and raids by auctioneers who wanted to attach company properties worth millions of shillings.
Yet, here they are today, crying and thinking how their lives would be soon transformed and made beggars, people who cannot educate their children, who cannot take their children to hospital and fathers and mothers who cannot put food on their tables for children to eat due to loss of jobs.
By George Agimba
