Sacks of contraband sugar confiscated by police in Eastleigh, Nairobi,
on July 3, 2018. PHOTO | EVANS HABIL | NATION MEDIA GROUP
Members of Parliament have resolved to indict two Cabinet
secretaries and a number of parastatal heads for endangering the lives
of Kenyans by allowing ‘poisonous’ sugar into the market.
Members
of the National Assembly Committees on Agriculture and Livestock and
that of Trade, Industry and Co-operatives want Cabinet secretaries Henry
Rotich (Treasury) and Adan Mohamed (Industrialisation, recently moved
to East African Community) held culpable for their actions that saw the
entry into the market of the sugar, feared to be laced with elements of
heavy metals — mercury, lead and copper.
The 38-member
committee, currently in Mombasa for report writing, was initially split
in the middle on who should carry the cross, with some defending the
Cabinet secretaries and instead putting the blame on parastatal heads.
However,
threats of a dissenting report forced the other members of the joint
committee, co-chaired by Mandera South MP Adan Ali and his Kieni
colleague Kanini Kega, to endorse the recommendation.
“We
have agreed to indict the CSs and the parastatal heads as well as
recommend that they be investigated further by the responsible
government agencies for failing to perform their duties,” a member of
the committee said.
CONCLUSION
The committee also wants the management of Kenya Bureau of
Standards (Kebs), Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), Sony Sugar Company Ltd
and sugar directorate at the Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) to
take individual responsibility for failing to perform their roles
effectively.
The probe was in response to Samburu West
MP Naisula Lesuuda’s request for a ministerial statement on whether
sugar in the market is safe following claims by Interior Cabinet
Secretary Fred Matiang’i that it contained traces of heavy metals.
This
came as it emerged that Kenyans will wait longer to know the results of
whether the sugar is safe or not after Mr Kega said the committee will
file its report without conclusive findings from the Ministry of Health,
Kebs and the government chemist.
“The 10 days that the
Speaker gave us are now over. We have also concluded our investigations
but the challenge we have is that the government agencies have been
unable to provide us with their final results on the suitability of the
sugar,” Mr Kega said.
GAZETTE NOTICE
Mr Rotich is on the spot over the three suspicious gazette notices he issued in the importation of duty-free sugar last year.
In
the gazette notice number 4536 of between May 12 to August 31, 2017, Mr
Rotich did not specify the quality and quantity of sugar to be imported
despite his Agriculture colleague, Mr Mwangi Kiunjuri, advising so.
The
notice also permitted everyone, including those not licensed, to import
the commodity thereby compromising quality and standards.
Mr Adan Mohamed has been accused of failing to ensure the sugar importation policies are implemented.
Kebs on the other hand failed to ensure that quality standards are adhered to.
KRA has been accused of failing to implement the report of the 11th Parliament.
BORDER
The
report recommended that KRA forms a multiagency with AFA and DCI to
check the porous border points where contraband sugar was entering the
Kenyan market.
The committee is expected to finalise
its findings and recommendations this morning before presenting the
report in the House tomorrow when MPs resume sittings after a short
recess.
The CS also intervened and issued a gazette
notice to allow 14 companies that had imported outside the duty waiver
period to have their consignments cleared by KRA without paying the
import duty.
The notice number 9801 had extended the
duty waiver period from August 31 to December 31 but would later be
amended by another issue of notice number 10149, which reduced the
December date to October 13.
But still, the private firms would still have their consignments delivered in December duty-free.
The CS is also on the spot for failing stop companies that had been blacklisted by the 11th Parliament.
ACCUSED
KRA
was also required to punish its staff who aided in sugar smuggling
business but KRA Commissioner General John Njiraini defended them,
saying they did nothing wrong.
AFA is accused of failing to ensure that quality and quantity measures were adhered to when the sugar was imported.
Sony
sugar has been indicted for being used by private entities to import
the 'poisonous' sugar as well as a conduit to evade import duty.
The
recommendations will put the multiagency team from the Director of
Public Prosecutions (DPP), Ethics and Anti- Corruption Commission (EACC)
and Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) on high alert.
COMPROMISED SUGAR
In
its preliminary findings of sugar seized by the joint team and that in
the market, the Ministry of Health told the committee that it had not
found traces of heavy metals as claimed but high moisture content,
moulds and yeast in the 174 samples tested in selected parts of the
country.
It was a similar case for Kebs as its acting
managing director Moses Ikiara said that also traces of copper and lead
had been discovered in two samples of the commodity seized in Eastleigh
and Ruiru, currently detained at the DCI, Nairobi.
The
committee members will be seeking to clear their names after their July 5
preliminary report was dismissed by Speaker Justin Muturi, Majority
Leader Aden Duale and Minority Leader John Mbadi as being inconclusive.
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