Yet I fear for the Kisumu Breweries Limited factory, by far the biggest recent investment in the Western Kenya region and which has remained closed since March 23 following closure of bars, if the National Treasury alters the tax regime that made the investment attractive in the first place.
It is unfair indeed, that barely one and a half years after the Kisumu plant started its operations, the National Treasury is now turning around to say that it wants to change the Excise Duty regime that encouraged and led the investor to build the factory in Kisumu in the first place.
The economic impact and livelihood support the Kisumu factory gives to the Western Kenya economy is illustrated by the fact that the company currently has in its stores, 12,500 tonnes of sorghum that it purchased from farmers from last year’s crop.
It is estimated that to run and maintain the Kisumu plant, which has a capacity of a million hectolitres of alcohol, KBL will require nearly 40,000 metric tonnes of sorghum every year
In the last one and half years, the company has been forced to spend billions of shillings in developing a stable and high quality sorghum value chain.
If the National Treasury changes the tax regime that informed the establishment of the factory, the Kisumu plant will eventually die.
