25 March 2010 Written by Jorge Chullén, iuf sugar

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Africa Sugar Digest
Number 7 25 March 2010	Written by Jorge Chullén, IUF Sugar jchullen@rogers.com

Zambia: NUPAW negotiates in Zambia Sugar

Permanent workers in Zambia Sugar got a 14.5 percent wage increase across the board, while seasonal employees got a 10 percent. Inflation rate for 2009 was 9.6 percent. Allowances negotiated by NUPAW-Z include: education to ZMK 755,000 from ZMK 580,000; leave allowance at 1,900,000; housing: a 35 percent of basic salary for permanent workers and 30 percent for seasonal; lunch: ZMK 40,000; out of pocket: ZMK 40,000, and overnight allowance: ZMK 130,000. (USD 1.00=ZMK 4,600) (With information by Kunda Mutebele.)

Uganda: Kinyara’s proposed IPO

The country’s second largest sugar producer, Kinyara Sugar Works Ltd., may see an initial public offering (IPO) next year to sell the 49 percent stake publicly owned, according to the government’s Privatization Unit. Plan is to sell the stake to employees, the Bunyoro Kingdom – where the estate is located – and to the general public. The Rai Group, with corporate links to Mauritius, acquired 51 percent of Kinyara in 2006. Kinyara produced 95,000 tonnes of sugar last year, around one third of the country’s total output.

Kenya: Mumias Sugar energy output increases by 50 percent

Mumias Sugar Company increased its cogeneration production to 38 MW from 26 MW since last year, and plans to expand it to 50 MW within five years. Expansion of cogeneration is linked to an ethanol plant, which scheduled to start operations in December 2011; while the company has plans to build another factory in the delta of the Tana River that is expected to produce sugar, energy and ethanol. It was also said that Mumias is reviewing an agreement with the Japan Carbon Fund for the sale of carbon credits generated by the project.

Swaziland: Ubombo Ranches to cogenerate electricity

The expansion program of Illovo’s Ubombo Ranches includes the cogeneration of electricity, and the surplus will be sold to the Swaziland Electricity Company (SEC), albeit it was not reported the amount of energy to be produced and sold. Swaziland imports electricity mostly from South Africa, with a small portion from Mozambique.

Rwanda: Madhvani Production Low

Production at Kabuye Sugar Works, owned by the Madhvani Group, is still low, government sources said. The factory processes some 150,000 tonnes of cane, 90,000 supplied by farmers and 60,000 from own lands; and produces some 13,000 tonnes of sugar, about one third of the country’s needs. The factory has a production capacity of 20,000 tonnes and a potential it to increase to 43,000 tonnes. Madhvani also owns Kakira, the largest sugar producer in neighbouring Uganda, from which it imports sugar into Rwanda.

Tunisia: 14,000 tonnes of Algerian sugar bought

The 14,000 tonnes of Algerian white sugar reported earlier as bought by Tunisia came from Cevital, Algeria's largest refinery, which is doubling its annual production capacity to 1.8 million tonnes. Cevital sources most of its raw sugar from Brazil.

IUF: Sugar Sub-regional meeting in Swaziland

Twelve delegates from three unions met in Big Bend, site of Ubombo Ranches, an Illovo Sugar subsidiary, from 15 to 18 March to establish contacts around wage negotiations and continue working on the IUF Global Sugar project in East and Southern Africa. Five delegates from South Africa’s FAWU, four from Swaziland’s SAPWU and two from Mozambique’s SINTIA exchanged information on their negotiations for the current year. SAPWU started negotiating on 18 March; FAWU participated in the first meeting of the South African Bargaining Council for Sugar in late February, with the next scheduled meeting for 30 March; while SINTIA is preparing to negotiate later this month a minimum wage with the Mozambican sugar producers association, APAMO. Afterwards, SINTIA’s branches will bring the negotiations to the local level. The unions proposed a series of activities within the regional sugar project to strengthen communication and improve coordination for next year’s negotiations. A report on the meeting will be posted shortly posted on the IUF sugar site: www.iuf.org/sugar/

IUF: Evaluating the regional project with Mozambique’s SINTIA

A meeting to evaluate the impact of the regional project in Mozambique took place in Maragra Sugar Estate, an Illovo subsidiary, with eight participants: five persons from two branches of SINTIA (Maragra and Xinavane), the union provincial delegate, and from SINTIA national office. The project is dealing with the difficulties that SINTIA local committees have in accessing the Internet and some limitations within the union structures. On a positive experience, the Maragra union committee’s IUF correspondent has maintained a constant flow of information, and now the committee is equipped with an USB Internet “stick” to access the net through a mobile phone network. This is a mini-pilot project which will test one additional way for SINTIA instances to fully utilise the Internet.

Kenya: Optic fibre cable lands in Mombasa

The East African Submarine Cable System that links 21 African countries among themselves and with the world, landed in Mombasa on 22 March, and will land in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, on 7 April. Speed on Internet connections should improve considerably. (Internet access is a key element in the implementation of the African sugar project.)

Africa Sugar Digest is produced thanks to the IUF Global Sugar project in East and Southern Africa. It appears as news becomes available. Contributions are welcome. Visit the IUF sugar site at www.iuf.org/sugar/ for further information on the cane, sugar and ethanol sectors. The IUF African sugar project is supported by the Social Justice Fund of the Canadian Auto Workers (SJF-CAW), with contribution from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

IUF Global Sugar Program

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