BY MANUEL ODENY

The South Nyanza Sugar Company has rubbished as baseless reports of mismanagement at the government miller marking rounds on social media.

On Monday, the company managing director Martine Dima and board chairman Jared Kopiyo met with stakeholders at the facility to tone down on reports circulated on social media over mismanagement and corruption.

The due met representatives from farmers, workers, suppliers and media at the facility.

“We are on the right trajectory and our future as a company is bright, we posted the first profit since 2010 and these rumours are out here because we are turning the company around by crushing fraud and motivating our workers and farmers,” Dima said.

READ MORE: Migori county, Sony Sugar to have meeting over Sh170m unpaid taxes by the miller

He said when he took over seven months ago the company had recorded a Sh700million loss and after government bailout and audit on human resource and cash and sugar flows were able to make a Sh113million profit in a quarter of a year.

he said when he took over the company was only receiving 300-500 tonnes of cane in a day and the input extended to 2,500 tonnes daily.

He said the rumours were started in December when the company closed for a month to maintain the over 40 years old miller machines to increase conversion of sugar from cane to be at 10 tonnes of sugarcane to a tonne of sugar.

Before the machines which had stayed for over 24 months without a maintainence was taking up 15 tonnes of sugarcane to produce a tonne of sugar.

“This delay caused us to stop paying our farmers dues in a months basis becasue we didn’t have ourput and those against the administration picked it up, we have started operation and already cheques and payment will be made from this week,” Dima said.

He said the company boosted by national government bailout managed to raise Sh300million internally to do the maintainence.

“What we did was partial and in April we will have a complete maintainence especially during the long rains, but so far we are in good shape in production,” Dima said saying they are ready to reach a 90 per cent daily crushing capacity of the 3,000 tonne machine.

The article said the company was paying between Sh250,00-300,000 weekly for taxi services with also equal amount going for Dima’s per diems with Dima being out of office.

The article also singled out a case by Ngina Gitiba against the company in 2015 where she was awarded Sh62m, amount which has accrued to over Sh180million.

Dima rubbished the claims insisted “(Sony) can’t misuse when it comes it come finances, our budget is approved by board, ministry and is audited and the amount for hires comes from vehicles, graders, cane transport and vehicles for extension services.”

He said the company had auctioneers taking their vehicles and Migori county government harassing their vehicles over undue cess payment of one per cent of the value for every tonne of milled sugarcane at the firm.

“We had a sit down with stakeholders and advocates to understand our position and give us time, we are coming out of the woods,” Dima said.

READ MORE: Six Sony Sugar staff arrested over stolen sugar worth Sh1m from factory warehouses

Kopiyo, said the company was ready to go and they have called on both contracted and none contracted farmers to bring in sugarcane.

“We know those rumours on social media are fueled with those who have bad faith for the company we streamlined management and already we have staff who are facing court cases for stealing from the company,” Kopiyo added.

He said an internal audit revealed they had lost over Sh40million in two months as “Sony will not allow a few millionaires out of workers and farmers.”

Kopiyo called on administration of governor Ochillo Ayacko to instruct his staff to avoid harassing the company by grounding vehicles over pending bills which will be instructed to be paid by either national treasury or them.

“We even have pending bills in county and we have a committee to check them nationally, we will see to pay them but our drivers in either vehicles, tractors, motorbikes and graders are harassed,” Kopiyo said.

“We love this company and such actions have stifled our operations,” he said.

John Omollo and Argwings Adongo the chairman and secretary of federation of sugarcane farmers in Sony respectively said they support the administration.

“We had to sit down with the administration and we talked over the rumours, we have decided to back up the administration because we come from the woods,” Omollo said.

He said farmers were worried over delayed payment from the company, but after maintenance they hope for the best for over 30,000 sugarcane from around the company.

“When we heard we decided to sit to down with the management and we have seen through the rumours, we support Dima and his team,” Adongo said.