Kalungwishi Sugar to spend $3 million on new factory
By Liversage Mulinda in Kasama
KALUNGWISHI Sugar Estate in Kasama is to spend over US$3 million (about K15 billion) to build a new sugar milling factory to be completed this year.
General manager, George Okullo, said in an interview in Kasama the new manufacturing plant was part of the company’s ongoing expansion programme.
The expansion programme, both for the factory and the sugar cane fields, will see the company push up its sugar production from the current 2,000 tonnes to an estimated 10,000 tonnes in eight years time.
Mr Okullo said the expansion programme for the cane would include increasing the hectares under cultivation from which the company was currently getting about 20,000 tonnes of cane.
‘‘Our major expansion will be in the field because sugar is produced in the field but this is subject to the availability of land and the prevailing economic viability of the project. For us expansion is the only way to absorb our overhead costs,’’ Mr Okullo said.
The general manager added that the expansion programme would result in an increase in the number of center pivot irrigation systems being used from the current two to about 12 over the next few years.
He said the supply of sugar cane to the plant would be supplemented by a planned out grower scheme, which Kalungwishi Estates would support but appealed to other partners like the Government and donors to support the scheme especially in the building of critical infrastructure.
Mr Okullo said his company was better placed to sell its products to the northern border towns market and in Tanzania when demand for Kalungwishi sugar was impressive.
Kalungwishi sugar was also collaborating with other sugar growers like Zambia Sugar Company on issues of marketing to ensure that desired national and international sugar standards were maintained.
But the general manager observed that a number of challenges still pose as potential hindrances to the development of the estates among them, unreliable communication facilities and the general rising in the cost of energy and fuel.
Mr Okullo said other concerns related to the problem of human resources as lack of basic facilities in the area made it difficult to attract staff of required calibre.
He said the development of the sugar industry would assist in raising the economic standard of the area which was predominantly rural through economic multiplier effects.
Kalungwishi sugar currently employs 120 permanent workers with an additional 500 seasonal workers in cane cutting.
