THE AFRICAN BUSINESS FORTUNE- ECONOMY
Reviving Kenya Meat Commission
By Monicah Muema
The Kenya Meat Commission( KMC) is hopeful of passing tests to resume meat exports as part of efforts to restore the country’ s vibrant beef industry.
The heavily indebted Parastatal is presently on the verge of collapse even as a parliamentary committee on Agriculture, Livestock and Co-operatives is still divided on whether to have it privatized or continue to stomach the endless government bail-outs – at the expense of tax payers.
A majority of the committee members, led by its chairman Abdi Noor is opposed to the idea of having KMC sold to private investors, and instead the legislators now want to come up with long lasting remedies for the factory’ s revival.
The committee has said this will only be done once a comprehensive scrutiny of a report provided to it by the firm’ s management is complete and determined from an outcome of a consultative retreat in Mombasa this month( April).
“ We are on a fact-finding mission on this sleeping-giant and we want to come up with extensive and practical solutions for its revival, we will analyze the report presented to us and see how best we can solve them,” said Noor in March when the committee toured the facility in Athi River.
The report among other concerns, has recommended that the company’ s long-serving employees to voluntarily take up early retirement send-off package in a‘ staff rationalization’ process – estimated to cost in excess of Sh152- million, targeting over 100 workers.
In the meantime, the Board of KMC and a good number of MPs have recommended that the firm abandon plans to set up a new factory and, instead renovate and revolutionize the facility.
“ Privatization may not be the solution at the moment, there’ s no problem with the buildings, our biggest concern is how we can modernize the factory and replace the obsolete machines that have existed for over 66 years,” said KMC board chair Taraiya ole Kores.
The facility has the capacity to handle over 1,000 large cattle per day through its abattoirs in its Athi River plant and 250 large stocks and 500 small stocks daily in its Mombasa factory is expected to play a crucial role in the industry’ s progression.
Previous attempts by the incumbent administration and Kibaki’ s regime have all but bore little fruits – for a state corporation that was until the appointment of a new Board, twirling under serious financial impropriety, mismanagement and breaches of procurement of raw materials.
Despite millions of shillings that the two regimes have pumped into it to save it from financial crisis – KMC is still a sad story, a history littered with never-ending debts.
Sh152M
Cost of staff rationalization
The process targets over 100 workers
KMC began showing signs of collapse ten years after it was revived, a move that prompted Kibaki’ s administration in March of 2013 to order a probe into the excess loss of Sh1.2billion, including Sh600million set aside for its revival
KMC’ s share of bad fortunes started in 1974 when it made a string of loses fol-
38 THE AFRICAN BUSINESS FORTUNE MAY- JUNE 2016