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"content": "could implement it, the Orient Paper Mills management, which had a 54 per cent shareholding, left the baby in our hands and those of the people of Webuye. The Government said that the factory is very important and it would not allow it to go down. The Government promised to make every effort to revive it and is still committed to the revival of Pan African Paper Mills. I regret that it has taken quite a very long time to revive the factory, but, again, the commitment from the Government is still there. The President, the Prime Minister, the Treasury and I have shown commitment. It has been a bit difficult to co-ordinate all these activities. I am not talking from the point of view of the Prime Minister and the President. However, the actors in this case are the Treasury, the Attorney-General, my Ministry, the Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources, and the Ministry of Forestry. These are the actors who are supposed to come together and implement Government policy which is to revive this factory. The Pan African Paper Mills is very crucial not only to the people of Webuye, but also to the country as a whole. It has been the major source of paper in the country. The whole paper industry has been affected. Think of those who package flowers, milk and so on. This factory used to be the major supply of paper in the whole country. Now we have to import all that paper. So, you can imagine the problem in the country after the closure of Pan African Paper Mills. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, currently, Pan African Paper Mills is insolvent. All we have now are long-term lenders; short-term lenders; and, unsecured creditors. The short-term lenders have appointed a receiver. Actually they are the ones hon. Dr. Eseli referred to as âfunny peopleâ. They are actually there, but we have restrained them from selling or cannibalizing the machines. As has been reported, they may be cannibalizing the equipment. I am not very sure though, but I will have to send a team to go and inspect the factory this coming week. The company is indebted to over Kshs6 billion. Since the last meeting we had with the Implementation Committee, only one significant thing has happened. The PS, Treasury has written to two other long-term lenders, one of them being the Deutsch Bank of Germany, to waive the money they lent this company. I think that will come. In fact, that is what has delayed action by the Treasury. I think the Treasury wants to do much cleaning of the books before we can actually move to the next step. The Implementation Committee had come up with a way forward through what they were calling âinterpleader proceedingsâ. Hon. Imanyara knows about that. However, when the Solicitor-General appeared before the Committee, he said that this was not the right way to go. We almost agreed that, that may not be the right way to go. We have said that the right way to go is to put this company under receivership and sell it as a going concern on condition that it will be run as a paper factory. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, when these people left, we actually set up a task force. They went to the ground and found out that the company was viable. They reported that the company had been mismanaged and that is something we all had known. In order to revive it, apart from a number of things that ought to be done, we require a sum of Kshs1.6 billion. The Treasury, through the Printed Estimates, gave us a token figure of Kshs500 million, which is still in our books. It does not mean that Treasury is not willing to put in the remaining amount of money. The fact that Treasury has put in Kshs500 million in the"
}