On Monday 25, June when MPs grilled Agriculture CS Mwangi Kiunjuri and his National Treasury counterpart Henry Rotich, it was clear the matter was not far from ending up in a blame game.
Drama ensued the inquest into the importation of the contaminated sugar when the cabinet secretaries appearing before the MPs separately failed to sufficiently answer Dagoreti South MP Simba Arati’s question.
While CS Kiunjuri blamed the National Treasury and drought mitigation measures for the influx of substandard and partly industrial sugar into the Kenyan market, CS Rotich passed the blame on to security agencies.
[caption caption="CS Henry Rotich "]
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Rotich stated that gazette notices that had been issued to allow just anyone to import sugar are not in anyway an okay to security agencies and the revenue authority to let the illegal sugar find a place on the shelves of any Kenyan shops for consumption.
He also told the House committee that the imports also included sugar that was brought in by individuals whose consignment was for their own household use.
But it was until when the Cabinet Secretaries denied being aware of companies allowed to import sugar despite the fact that they had been blacklisted by parliament.
“Among the list of companies that imported this sugar are two firms whose license was canceled by the Sugar Directorate after their directors were charged in in court in connection to drug trafficking. How sure are you that we are dealing with sugar and not narcotics?” Arati asked the National Treasury CS Henry Rotich.
The CS’ response to Mr. Arati did not go so well with the MPs. He told the committee that he had no information on the companies whose licenses had been revoked by the Sugar Directorate for being linked to the narcotics trade.
While responding to the same concern from Mr Arati, Agriculture CS Mwangi Kiunjuri earlier in the inquest said he was equally unaware of the companies.
He stated that if the blacklisted companies had indeed imported the sugar, its directors should face criminal charges once the law takes course.
[caption caption="CS Mwangi Kiunguri appearing before parliament "]
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