Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) on Tuesday told MPs that sugar
recently impounded was “generally safe” after only two of 66 samples
tested on 1.27 million bags was found to be contaminated with copper and
lead.
Moses Ikiara, the Kebs acting managing director,
told a joint Parliament team probing importation of sugar that the
tests have been drawn from 17 out of 41 counties whose samples were
taken.
“After testing 1,266,351 bags of sugar, we have
been able to find that except for two samples taken in Eastleigh and
Ruiru, which had traces of copper and lead, we haven’t found heavy
metals like mercury in that sugar,” said Mr Ikiara.
“Generally,
the sugar is safe but we have seen failures ranging from 20 to 30 per
cent in moisture content, yeast and moulds, colour, total viable count
and polarisation,” Mr Ikiara said.
He
told MPs that results for the remaining counties will be out in two
days and that Kebs was unable to get samples for six counties largely
drawn from the border areas because of insecurity and human resource
capacity.
Of the total samples, Mr Ikiara said those
lacking enough information on the quantity of bags for each sample is 13
representing a total of 271,675 bags.
“The number of those samples that complied is four and the number failing samples is nine,” he said.
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