How colonial legacy made KMC bite off more than it could chew

The history of the Kenya Meat Commission (KMC) can be traced to attempts by European settlers’ struggles to satisfy their requirements of meat and an export market for their livestock.

By 1910, Lord Delamere founded Nyama Limited for the purpose. The company established cold stores in Mombasa and Nairobi.

In 1929, Governor Edward Grigg appointed the Agricultural Commission chaired by Sir Daniel Hall. The commission recommended the establishment of a meat factory as a means of providing European stock breeders with a market for their livestock.

In regard to the African livestock economy, the commission emphasized the use of the factory to destock what they considered to be unnecessarily large numbers of livestock that could not be optimally kept in the reserves.

This sentiment was particularly stated in reference to the Kamba and, in addition, the Maasai, Samburu and other pastoralist communities in northern Kenya. It should be noted that the colonial state never had much regard for African communities’ livestock economy. In fact, the Agricultural Commission considered African livestock only good for products like hides and skins and fertiliser.

Successful experiment

In 1933, the Department of Agriculture and the Nairobi Municipal Council actually carried out a successful experiment using African livestock to manufacture fertiliser. It was envisaged that the proposed meat factory would also process these products.

In 1936, Liebig’s Extract of Meat Company, a British firm already established in Rhodesia (presently Zimbabwe) completed negotiations with the government for the erection of and operation of a meat processing factory at Athi River.

The factory was designed to process 35,000 to 45,000 heads of livestock per year. The livestock were to be obtained from Machakos District, Maasai Reserve, Yatta Plains and the samburu region.

Serious problems

The factory was completed in 1937 but faced serious problems obtaining supplies of cattle. By this time cattle prices had increased by almost 50 per cent above their earlier levels during the depression. Liebig’s was forced to close down its factory between 1938 and 1940.

Meanwhile, the government imposed a programme of forcible destocking in Machakos to force livestock prices down. This was done through auctions in which cattle were sold at prices between a quarter and a half their current market price. This was to enable Liebig’s to secure cheap supplies of livestock for slaughter at their factory.

The forced auctions at dismal prices led to the historic protest by Akamba from Machakos. Samuel Muindi Mbingu, who led 2000 Akamba to meet Governor Brook-Popham over the destocking crisis, was arrested and detained at Lamu.

Liebig’s operations continued during the Second World War as meat was in high demand. Forced requisitions of livestock now complemented auctions. Destocking policy continued after the Second World as part of anti-soil erosion policy in the whole country.

After the Second World War, Lord Delamere was again instrumental in founding a stockbreeders’ co-operative, which later morphed into the KMC.

The KMC was established under the Kenya Meat Commission Ordinance of 1950 with very wide-ranging functions: “to purchase cattle and small stock and to acquire, establish and operate abattoirs, meat works, cold storage concerns and refrigeration works for the purpose of slaughtering cattle and small stock, processing by-products, preparing hides and chilling, freezing, canning and storing beef, mutton, poultry and other meat food for export or consumption within the colony and to confer certain exclusive rights upon the said commission.” It was made to bite more it was able to chew and swallow in the long run.

State control

During the 1950s, in spite of the difficulties KMC faced, its service delivery was satisfactory. It met its operational expenses from its own trading profits. But it should be noted that parastatals such as KMC were instruments of settler influence and state control of the agricultural sector. So the colonial state gave it the much desired protection.

The independent state in Kenya inherited the arrangement. In 1969, the Kenya government took over Liebig’s plant at Athi River although the marketing of canned meat remained in the latter’s hands until 1974 when it was taken over by KMC.

By this time, prominent African leaders increasingly replaced settler interest. The policy of Africanisation between 1960 through 1970s saw to this. KMC’s good performance continued when Kenya’s economy was booming.

This ended with the oil crisis of1973. Government’s appointment of inexperienced KMC’s managers who were also guided by political decisions worsened the situation. KMC’s woes commenced and would continue unabated. The general decline of Kenya’s economy had also commenced.

 The era of Structural Adjustment Programme (Sap) pushed KMC’s into an abysmal plunge. Sessional Paper No 1 of 1986 now emphasized privatisation and the confined government’s role in the economic sector to providing a favourable business environment.

Financial assistance

For KMC, which had survived under the umbrella of government patronage and massive financial assistance, Saps, therefore, brought about a painful period of KMC’s closures and re-openings. For instance, it was closed in 1987 and reopened in 1989. It was again closed for a longer period in 1992 and reopened in 2006.

KMC’s plight was exacerbated by corruption during the Moi regime. This involved grabbing of KMC’s land at Athi River and in other places by prominent individuals who are politely referred to as private developers. KMC’s coffers were looted by its managers.

In spite of its reopening and restructuring in 2006, KMC failed to take off. It continued to make huge losses. Its main challenges continued to be ineffective management, obsolete machinery which frequently broke down, loss of the export market because of the poor quality of its products and poor marketing strategies, and pastoralist communities’ reluctance to sell their livestock to KMC.

Whether or not the military will succeed in restructuring and turning around KMC’s fortunes will be determined by the confluence of many historical forces that are yet to unfold.

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