Importer fights Kebs bid to destroy 'substandard' sugar

Contraband sugar seized at a warehouse in Nakuru in August. FILE PHOTO | NMG 

By GALGALLO FAYO

More by this Author

Summary

• Landmark Freight Services Ltd had on August 30 moved to High Court seeking orders to stop the Kebs from destroying sugar seized at its warehouse in Mombasa.
• The firm in a fresh application filed on Thursday claims that it had received a destruction notice from the agency on September 20, which it says is meant to render its application irrelevant.

A firm whose 92,000 bags of brown sugar imported from Brazil were flagged by the Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) over high yeast content is back in court after the agency directed the consignment be destroyed.

Landmark Freight Services Ltd had on August 30 moved to High Court seeking orders to stop the Kebs from destroying sugar seized at its warehouse in Mombasa.

The firm in a fresh application filed on Thursday claims that it had received a destruction notice from the agency on September 20, which it says is meant to render its application irrelevant.

“That unless this application for injunction restraining the respondents from destroying the petitioner’s sugar is allowed as prayed in the application dated August 29, the petitioner’s sugar is going to be destroyed before the application and petition are heard and thereby render these proceedings nugatory and an academic exercise,” says the firm’s director Samwel Mburu.

The High Court had set the hearing the matter to be heard on October 1 but the firm is apprehensive that the sugar could be destroyed before that date.

The firm denies allegations that the sugar is unfit for consumption, arguing that it received clearance from the Kebs last year to import 511,600 50-kg bags of the commodity but in a dramatic turn of events State agencies seized cargo was during the July crackdown.

The petitioner has since sold more than 400,000 bags of the sugar without any qualms from the respondents, it says in court papers.

The company has listed the Kebs, Kenya Revenue Authority, the Attorney-General, the Ministry of Trade and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations as respondents.

The sugar was imported during the exemption period granted by the Treasury last year, which ran from May 11 to August 31.

The firm claims that the sugar was inspected at the point of loading by SGC Gulf Limited, a Kebs-appointed agent, and issued with clearance certificates.

The Kebs is said to have carried out a random microbiology test at Mombasa port, which cleared the sugar.