KEBS Faults KRA Over Sale of Contraband Sugar

The Kenya Bureau of Standards has blamed Kenya Revenue Authority for the disappearance of contraband sugar that found its way into the market.

The standards board informed MPs that KRA was in charge of the 20,000 bags of 50kg of suspect sugar at the time they vanished, sparking what is quickly turning into an agency war.

The suspicious shipment was sealed off by the authority’s enforcement department at Vinepack godown in Thika, according to Kebs acting managing director Esther Ngari, and had been kept under the taxman’s watchful eye.

“The consignment in the godown was sealed off again by the enforcement arm of KRA-ISO (Intelligence and Strategic Operations),” Ngari told members of the Trade Committee of the National Assembly.

She added: “The consignment was under the custody of ISO and Vinepack.”

Ngari further disclosed before the committee led by James Gakuya, the MP for Embakasi North, that Kebs had tracked down and seized over 52 tons of substandard sugar that had made its way onto the market.

She informed the MPs that the unsafe sugar was recovered from more than 300 locations across the country.

“After learning of the alleged loss of sugar with the suspicion that it had been released into the market to unsuspecting consumers, Kebs immediately sanctioned a countrywide market surveillance activity which is still ongoing to remove all suspicious sugar,” Ngari said.

She stated that the seized items are currently being tested before being destroyed.

“This is what we have considered as potentially unsafe, so it has been seized, isolated and the decision to destroy will be made once testing is complete,” Ngari said.

“The suspicious sugars have been seized across the country and samples submitted to Kebs testing laboratories where testing is ongoing, and results will be shared with this honorable committee once the testing exercise is completed.”