Suspected contraband sugar which was seized in Kitui on June 16, 2018. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
The sugar wars that are threatening to unravel the Jubilee
ruling coalition have focused mostly on the product that is imported by
scores of licensed traders.
But,
unknown to many Kenyans, a significant amount of sugar consumed in the
country is contraband Brazilian product imported via the Kismayu port
and smuggled in through the porous Somalia border.
A
study by a Danish think-tank shows how political, business,
bureaucratic and security interests in Somalia and Kenya are fuelling
the smuggling that threatens the country’s political and economic
stability.
It describes the smuggling as a “dangerous, lucrative and highly political business.’’
SUGAR BELT NEGLECT
Sweet secrets: Sugar smuggling and State formation in Kenya-Somalia borderlands by
Prof Jacob Rasmussen of Denmark’s Roskilde University, blames official
neglect of the sugar sector in western Kenya and marginalisation of the
country’s northern region for the smuggling.
It names a former governor and a leading politician from northern Kenya as some of the top politicians involved in the trade.
There
are at least 70 businessmen in Kismayu, Garissa and Nairobi who operate
lucrative rings that earn them millions of dollars a year.
In
contrast to the sugar that comes in through Mombasa, which is imported
by licensed traders, the one from Somalia is contraband and is mostly
from Brazil.
The smugglers have hundreds of trucks that operate between Garissa and Kismayu.
On
their way to Kismayu, they carry Kenyan food and consumer goods and, on
their way back, they are loaded with hundreds of bags of contraband
sugar.
The researchers spoke to a number of truck drivers on the frontline of the smuggling.
SECURITY THREAT
The
study says the Kenyan military, its Somali allies and Al-Shabaab
militants are cooperating on the trade in a move that has serious
security consequences for both Kenya and Somalia.
The
government is denied hundreds of millions of shillings in taxes yet
some of its agencies, including the military, police and KRA, are
involved in unofficial taxation of the trade.
From
Kismayu, which has been under the control of the Kenya Defence Forces
since 2012, the sugar passes through Al-Shabaab controlled territory to
Garissa and Nairobi where it is repackaged and sold as a local product.
There is also a big market of the commodity in northeastern, especially in refugee camps, the study reveals.
JUBILEE RIFT
Sugar
trade has of late become a political hot potato with accusations that
some traders imported the product laced with mercury.
Some 1.2 million bags of sugar have been seized by police in Nairobi, Kitui, Machakos and Migori in the past fortnight.
Senior
officials of the Kenya Bureau of Standards, including former managing
director Charles Ongwae, have been charged with allowing the sugar into
the country.
The crackdown has turned
into a face-off between the two wings of the ruling Jubilee coalition
loyal to President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto.
Some
in the Ruto faction feel the crackdown has targeted them while leaving
out supporters of the President who are also sugar importers.
Last
week, National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale, a leading ally of
the DP, accused the government of targeting small Somali sugar sellers
instead of going for big importers.
He named godowns in Nakuru and western Kenya he said were full of imported sugar.
And this week, Aldai MP Cornelly Serem named the President’s brother, Muhoho, as one of the importers.
MARGINALISATION
Prof
Rasmussen’s study was funded by the Danish Consultative Research
Committee for Development (FFU) and published by the Danish Institute
for International Studies and Centre for African Economics.
“Sugar
smuggling in northern Kenya is informed by decades of political
marginalisation of the northern territories by the Kenyan central
government. Corruption and structural neglect of domestic sugar
production in western Kenya is also influenced by struggles over
political power in Nairobi,” the study says.
Before
KDF took control of Kismayu, al-Shabaab’s main income came from
charcoal. But this has since shifted to sugar as it has become easier
for them to control the transportation and levying of taxes along the
route from Kismayu into Kenya.
CONFLICT ECONOMY
Although
KDF has been criticised for enabling the trade, the study also targets
the political and business interests that fuel the trade in Somalia and
northern Kenya as political elites rely heavily on the conflict economy
to establish and maintain power.
In
2015, the Journalists For Justice lobby group published a research
report in which it said 150,000 tonnes of illegal sugar entered Kenya
from Kismayu in 2014.
This amounts
to $400 million (Sh40 billion) worth of annual revenue divided between
KDF, Al-Shabaab, local businessmen and politicians, as well as police
and KRA officials.
In 2014 up to 230
trucks left Kismayu every week, each carrying 14 tonnes of sugar, and
even though they are no longer in control of the harbour, al-Shabaab
charges $1,000 per truck.
Checkpoints
between Kismayu and the Kenyan border are divided between the militants
and KDF, where KDF and Somali officials in Jubaland are said to charge a
tax of $2 per sack of 50 and sometimes 100 kg.
On the Somali side of the border in Dhobley, the Jubaland administration collects a further tax of $600 per truck.
To
cross the border at Liboi truck owners pay another $600 to the KDF and
an expected final $600 to the police at the Dadaab refugee camp.
SUGAR GODOWNS
Sugar warehouses are distributed along the route from the border at Liboi all the way to Mandera in the north.
The
sugar godowns in Dadaab, El Wak, Modogashe, Habaswein, Wajir, and
Mandera each form local distribution points, indicating local demand for
sugar.
Although the trade has been
in existence for nearly two decades, the rise of Al-Shabaab insurgent
group has brought in a new security dimension, the study says.
The
trade has also become associated with Kenyan politics in novel ways, as
the mismanagement of national sugar production increases the demand for
sugar while protectionist trade policies have obstructed sufficient
imports.
'STATE AGAINST ITSELF'
The Somalia sugar bridges a deficit in Kenyan production.
The
study says because the Somali State is all but absent, local
politicians, businessmen and militias cooperate, compete, and negotiate
the rules of the game.
KDF’s
involvement, the study adds, undermines their legitimacy. It also gives
the trade an important role in escalating security concerns and
instability on both sides of the border.
It is
ironical, the study says, that the Kenyan government sets up the rules
of taxation and official passage across the border, hence defining
illicitness as non-compliance with these rules.
Yet
the active involvement of the KDF and other Kenyan state agencies in
the illicit trade make the Kenyan state a co-producer of illicit
practices, thus effectively setting the State against itself.
LOCAL PRODUCTION
But
at the heart of the contraband sugar imports is Kenya’s inability to be
self-sufficient in local production, the paper says.
According
to annual reports by the US Department of Agriculture, Kenyan sugar
consumption is growing, yet local production is declining.
In
2011 domestic production covered 70 per cent of local consumption, but
in 2015 the local share was down to 62 per cent. In 2014, Kenya had a
sugar deficit of 200,000 tonnes.
Outdated sugar mills that are closed regularly for maintenance are blamed for the deficit.
Small-scale farmers who supply most of the cane have not been paid for months.
This also applies to other public factories like Nzoia. Private millers like West Kenya have resorted to imports.
Kenya’s
sugar processing is slow and expensive, resulting in production costs
that are 50 to 60 per cent higher than in neighbouring Uganda and
Tanzania, not to mention Ethiopia, which has increased its sugar cane
production in recent years as part of government-led agricultural
development projects.
In Kenya,
Mumias Sugar Company Limited, the largest producer, which accounts for
close to 60 per cent of national sugar output, has been wracked by
financial irregularities and corruption, repeatedly interrupting
production since 2012.
These
irregularities and the high production costs of Kenyan sugar meant that
locally milled sugar in 2014 sold for up to Sh133 a kilo, whereas
smuggled sugar went for as little as Sh60 a kilo.
With
these price differences in mind it is easy to see the potential for
profit in repackaging and selling smuggled sugar as if it were local
sugar, the study says.
POWERFUL CARTELS
The sugar importers are so powerful and dangerous that even government officials are forced to play ball.
The
Dadaab refugee camp, close to Garissa in northern Kenya, is one of the
major hubs for the trade with hundreds of thousands of clients.
The
report cites a 2014 incident in which a police officer was shot dead in
the camp when he acted against the advice of his sugar patron, an
influential local politician.
Officially,
his killing was blamed on Al-Shabaab. The report also quotes a regional
commissioner newly posted to the area narrating how he was threatened
by a sugar trader who visited him in his office.
“If
he was unwilling to cooperate, the businessman pointed out that the
commissioner had three options; either to seek transfer of placement by
himself, to have the businessman take care of his transfer or to never
return to his family. Such blunt intimidation testifies to the power and
connectedness of the people involved in the smuggling.’’
COMPLICIT SUPPORT
KDF’s
implicit support or acceptance of Al-Shabaab’s huge profits from the
trade, the study says, goes directly against the official security
interests of the Kenyan state and produces incentives for local
politicians to keep the conflict going.
On
April 2, 2015, when al-Shabaab attacked Garissa University College,
killing 148 people mostly students, the government announced it had
frozen the accounts of 86 companies it said supported the militants.
Nation investigations at the time revealed that none of the sugar barons were named in the list of 86 companies and individuals.
Reports
by the United Nations and a US government agency say there are about 70
businessmen — in Kismayu, Garissa and Nairobi — who are brokers in the
sugar trade.
According to a report
prepared jointly by the United Nations Environmental Programme (Unep)
and Interpol, Al-Shabaab’s primary source of income appears to be from
informal taxation at roadblocks.
The report said the militants make as much as Sh1.5 billion a year from just one roadblock.
“There
are five checkpoints between Kismayu and Garissa — three by Al-Shabaab
and two by the KDF. The sugar trucks are waved through all the
checkpoints without checks,” said a source. Kenya’s military chiefs have
previously denied allegations of involvement in any illicit activity in
Somalia.
No comments :
Post a Comment