Receivership hurting Webuye Paper Mills operations, says Muliaro

Written by Rosemary Wachiye 2012-01-17 19:42:00 Read 448 Times

Barely four months after its revival, Webuye Paper Mills is making huge losses as it faces a daunting challenge of getting ready market for its paper.  The paper sales are slow and this has been blamed on its receivership by the government.  According to Dr. Wafula Muliaro who is spearheading its revival, the factory has produced enough paper for sale but it cannot sale off the paper easily since it does not have its own account for the income to go through and all its finances goes back to the government.  He has stated that being under receivership keeps the factory under revival and testing mode instead of being in full operational mode thus making it hard to make profits from the sales made.  Dr. Muliaro (pictured) has dismissed the claim that paper made from pulp no longer has market as perceived by a section of critics, stating that only reading and writing paper has been digitalized but industrial paper has not and it is still being made from pulp.  “Pan Paper will never lack market for its paper, since 90 per cent of its produced paper is for industrial use and production of cartons and heavy density paper for packaging purposes,” said Muliaro.  He revealed to West fm that there is 3,500 metric tonnes of paper in the factory’s warehouse waiting to be sold while there is a pending order of 9,000 Metric tones from factories in Kenya that is yet to be cleared.  “Most of Pan Paper factory’s previous major customers are back as they find importation of paper to be very costly and time consuming and will rather get easily and fast from here,” he said.  This January the Pan Paper factory has officially received ETR and pin certificate from Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and the management hopes that that will be a get through to it being able to carry out paper business easily with no hindrance.  According to him, once Pan Paper has been turned into official operation then they will be able to sell out paper and the money generated will be ploughed back to the inputs of the factory, they will also be able to run, plan and execute the processes in the factory effectively.  At the moment the workers’ pay is being settled by the government through the Ministerial revival grant.  He at the same time acknowledged the recent case of power being cut on 16th January 2012 following the delay to clear electricity bill for the month of December 2011 but affirmed that the issue was under control and that soon it will be settled and the factory would be back into operation as before.  The once busy factory, was deserted and in total silence following the power discharge as workers were forced to go back home as they could do nothing.  “We believe the payment will be done in the course of the week and  the factory will start operation soon, let it not be any cause for alarm to any of the stakeholders because it’s a small hitch that is under control,” said Dr. Muliaro.