The government has issued licences to sugar companies in Kenya to import sugar of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).

The move aims to lower the commodity price, retailing for about Sh510 for a two-kilo packet.

Speaking on Wednesday at State House, President William Ruto said that the supply of the product in COMESA has declined, thus the need to target international markets.

“There is concern around sugar and we have heard issues around the whole sugar sub sector, there has been a lot of confusion and chaos since the sector has been riddled and poaching of sugarcane from one corner to the other, and others refusing to work in accordance to the law,” he said.

“Infact the reason why many companies have closed shop temporarily is because there is no can to harvest and others were even harvesting cane that has not matured.”

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Further, he said that the government had been reluctant to work against farmers by opening imports.

“I want to announce that in the next one/two weeks at least by mid of this month, we will see different situation pertaining sugar as that is the time, we expect stocks of sugar to come into the country,” he said.

Additionally, he revealed that the government is working to create a roadmap that will be discussed in the cabinet meeting in the coming week to sort out the sugar issues in the country.

“I want to assure the country that we now have a comprehensive plan to sort out our sugar subsector to make sure that area is well aligned to serve the interest of farmers first and the interest of the country and consumers,” he said.

The government is angling to ratify, through next week’s Cabinet meeting, the decision to import sugar outside the COMESA trading bloc to cushion Kenyans who are already dipping more into their pockets for the sweetener.