An Account of Growth, Development, Impact, and Decline of Pan Paper Mills, 2000-2009

Abstract

Over the last two decades, Webuye Pan Paper Mill, the nation’s leading paper producer, came to an unholy ending. While its decline and its economic and labour history are largely unknown outside of Kenya, this event shook many observers and the locals who depended on it for livelihood and survival. The company faced ongoing issues, possibly related to financial instability (worsening liquidity position), management, operational challenges, and post-governmental collaboration agreements. This study provides important information on the post-colonial, political, and socio-economic development in western Kenya and the country as a whole. From its inception, the industry had dominated the state’s economic, social, and physical landscape, building mighty in western Kenya and extracting millions of pounds of ‘pulp’ wood from its impressive forests. For many generations, thirty thousand people or more worked in the paper mills and in the harsh forest fringe from which raw materials were extracted. Small and big communities emerged around the mills as logging sustained the otherwise declining agricultural areas. These industrial communities were tightly knit, and each company and its workers built their own labour relations systems, including workers’ unions. A historical study of labour and paper mills shows how new technologies were incorporated into the industry and how workers and management were often at loggerheads over work processes, work conditions, and work compensation. The theory of modernization was adopted in this study to assess the relationship between policing and post-modernity. Thus, the main aim of this paper is to account for a detailed account of the growth, development, livelihood impact, and decline of pan paper mills, 2000-2009. The study adopted an ex-facto approach, applying snowballing and purposive sampling techniques. Data collected was organized, edited, and coded, and information was analysed through two analytical frames: documentary review and content analysis. The results were arranged according to historical periods for comparison and correlation. The study used descriptive interpretation and a chronological approach.