Speaker of the National Assembly Justin Muturi ordered MPs to direct relevant ministries and agencies to provide it with evidence of the safety of sugar being sold throughout the country within the next 10 days.
MPs Thursday evening trashed preliminary findings of a joint committee that investigated the importation of sugar alleged to contain mercury and other poisonous substances.
As a result, Speaker of the National Assembly Justin Muturi ordered the committee to direct relevant ministries and agencies to provide it with evidence of the safety of sugar being sold throughout the country within the next 10 days.
“If it takes this long for agencies to provide conclusive tests and full investigations, what does this mean? Do they even have capacity to investigate? The House needs answers on issues that touch on health. Is the sugar laced with mercury? That is what Kenyans want to know,” Mr Muturi posed.
“My instruction is that, through the clerk, the committee should direct relevant ministries and or agencies to provide it with evidence indicating that the sugar out there is safe,” he said.
The lawmakers rejected interim findings that “so far and from the preliminary laboratory test and on-going analysis no traces of mercury have been found.”
The MPs also objected to a recommendation that the Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) should coordinate with other relevant government agencies to ensure that raw sugar that was imported during the duty exemption window be reprocessed by importers.
Leader of Majority Aden Duale and his minority counterpart John Mbadi led MPs in tearing into the findings of the team.
“I am very sad. The kind of recommendations in this report cannot be made by a county assembly committee.
We expected one definite recommendation on whether mercury was found in the sugar or there was no mercury as claimed by Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i. This report is not conclusive,” Mr Duale said.
He said that Kenyans were in limbo and do not know what they are consuming while legitimate importers do not know what to do with the seized consignments.
“We can’t take this kind of recommendation,15 days down the line and they recommend that all the sugar in the market including the one that Duale’s mother has in her house must undergone tests. This is ridiculous,” he said.
Mr Mbadi said the economic implication of the ongoing probe is that people are not buying sugar.
“The committee should have zeroed in on the people who said sugar has mercury, ensure they ascertain whether or not it had mercury. Listing to this committee, this report is a joke of the highest level,” Mr Mbadi said.
But the co-chairs of the joint House committee Kanini Kega and Mohammed Haji hit back accusing Mr Duale and Mr Mbadi of acting unfairly in dismissing the preliminary findings.
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