Kakira Sugar Limited (KSL)

Kakira Sugar Limited (KSL) is one of the oldest sugar milling companies in Uganda and the flagship enterprise of the Madhvani Group. Established by Muljibhai Prabhudas Madhvani (14th May 1894 – 11th July 1958), the company was first set up in 1930, with the capacity to crush 150 tonnes of cane per day.

A man of great vision, Muljibhai arrived in Jinja as a young teenager to join an uncle in business. With little more than determination and an outgoing personality, he soon set up his own trading concern – his first step into a business that would later expand and diversify to account for 10% of Uganda’s GDP.

Following his humble business beginnings, there was no looking back and Muljibhai went on establishing industry after industry, laying the foundation for Uganda’s economic development.

As his business prospered, Muljibhai was keen to care for the well-being and welfare of his employees and the community at large. He established many educational institutions throughout Uganda’s towns with a view to sharing his good fortune with the country that had been so kind to him. His workers and their dependants have long enjoyed free education, housing and healthcare.

His is a story of a fearless man – decisive, devoted, and endowed with intelligence and intuition. When Muljibhai passed away in 1958, he left an indelible imprint on Uganda.

1908

1911-1914

1918-1930

1949

1957

1958

1972

1985

2000

2006-2013

2015-2016

2018-2020

2022

Muljibhai Prabhudas Madhvani (14 May 1894 – 11 July 1958) aged 14 years old, arrives in Jinja, Uganda, to join his two uncles Vithaldas and Kalidas Haridas in their shop in Iganga and starts from these simple beginnings to learn about commerce and industry.

Muljibhai is entrusted to run a shop in Kaliro, Uganda, and is then asked in 1914 to open and manage a shop in Jinja.

Vithaldas Haridas & Company Ltd buys 800 acres of land in Kakira, Uganda. It would be another nine years before the sugar factory started operations there in 1930 with the crushing capacity of 150 tonnes of cane per day. Muljibhai starts procuring additional land from other European and Asian farmers to expand the sugarcane cultivation area.

The partners of Vithaldas Haridas and Company decide to separate and the Madhvani family acquires all the assets of the Kakira sugar complex in Uganda.

Kakira installs sprinkler irrigation for 2,800 hectares – at that time the largest in the world outside Cuba.

Muljibhai passes away leaving the Group in the capable hands of his two elder sons – Jayant and Manubhai, who steadily expanded and diversified business activities.

President Idi Amin orders the expulsion of Asians from Uganda (irrespective of citizenship) giving them 90 days to leave the country. Over the next thirteen years the Kakira sugar factory grinds to a halt.

In 1983, the Obote Government passes the Expropriated Property Act. This enables the Madhvani family to apply for re-possession of all the industries developed by the Group pre-1972. In March 1985, the Kakira sugar complex is formally returned to the Madhvani family (East Africa Holdings Ltd.), with the Government of Uganda finally holding 51% shares in 1987. Supported by loans of US$59 million-dollars from the World Bank, African Development Bank and Uganda Development Bank, rehabilitation of the Kakira sugar estate starts with Sugar production resuming in 1989.

Having completed the rehabilitation of Kakira to pre-1972 level, the Madhvani family re-acquires 100% shareholding of Kakira Sugar Works (1985) Ltd. The Group then undertakes an expansion programme to 3,000 TCD with funding from the Netherlands Development Finance Company (Nederlandse Financierings-Maatschapij voor Ontswikkelingslenden – FMO).

Kakira expands further in phases and diversifies into generation of ‘green electricity’ from residual sugarcane biomass.

In 2007 – the Group completes construction of a new Power House and installs two new 45 bar boilers and a 21.5 MW turbo-alternator (as well as a second 3MW turbo-alternator) for increased in-house use of electrical power as well as sale of the surplus (up to 12 MW) to the national grid.

For the next five years, the Kakira plant is upgraded and improved to increase its capacity to crush 2 million tonnes of cane per year by 2012-13 and raise grid electricity generation and supply to 32 MW (from total generation of 51 MW).

Kakira undertakes the next phase of diversification to use the molasses by-product from cane processing to produce 20 million litres per year of Ethanol in a state-of-the-art new distillery plant. Kakira’s distillery has the flexibility to produce Extra Neutral Alcohol (ENA – for potable spirits) or Anhydrous Ethanol for blending with petrol as an automobile bio-fuel.

Further value addition by starting its own blending and maturation unit to produce a range of premium potable spirits from ENA. Kakira also introduces production of alcohol-based hand-sanitizer Kakira Klean to assist Uganda for protective measures against COVID-19.

Currently, Kakira Sugar Ltd is fully-owned by East African Holdings Ltd and has been expanded in phases (including a new five-tandem sugar mill) to its present capacity of up to 8,500 tonnes of cane per day (TCD). This translates to over 2.2 million tonnes of cane crushed per year to produce over 180,000 tonnes of sugar annually.

Cane is supplied to Kakira from its own nucleus estate surrounding Kakira and a managed estate at Kayunga, as well as 10,000 independent outgrower farmers (who have been nurtured and developed by Kakira’s management team since 1990).