MPs want Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich together with EAC counterpart Adan Mohamed investigated over the contraband sugar seized last month.
A joint report by two parliamentary committees submitted to parliament yesterday said the two should be probed over the way they handled sugar imports. The government is conducting an unprecedented campaign against illicit goods, in an attempt to help the local manufacturing sector.
The report by parliament’s agriculture and trade and industries committees said Rotich had authorised imports that led to a market oversupply of more than 450,000 tonnes of sugar.
It said Mohamed had failed to supervise the country’s standards agency, which falls under the ministry he ran, leading to imports of sugar that was not safe for human consumption.
Parliament has to vote on the recommendations by the two committees before the report takes effect. It has not said when the vote will take place.
A fresh controversy has erupted within the committee investigating controversial sugar imports, with a section of MPs claiming that the report was doctored at the last minute to exonerate some culprits.
And yesterday, National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi abruptly deferred debate on the report into the contaminated sugar.
Muturi stopped debate on the new report because it was presented to the House unprocedurally. Without elaborating, Muturi said other members of the two committees had suggested amendments, which he had approved for inclusion.
A section of MPs sitting in theNational Assembly joint committee on Agriculture and Trade yesterday disowned part of the report tabled on Wednesday.
Dagoretti North MP Simba Arati and Makueni’s Dan Maanzo, among others, claimed the report which indicted Cabinet secretaries Henry Rotich (Treasury), Adan Mohammed (EAC and former Trade) and former Agriculture CS Willy Bett was edited between the Panari Hotel and Parliament Buildings.
The team chaired by Kanini Kega (Kieni) and Adan Haji (Mandera East) retreated to the hotel early this week to write the final report after a similar attempt failed in Mombasa two weeks ago.
The aggrieved MPs claim the doctoring was a conspiracy between the two chairs and clerks who were ‘”overprotective” of the ministers.
“I was as shocked as the members are. They should ask the lawyers who drafted the report. I signed it the way it was approved by members and tabled it in the House,” Kega told a local newspaper.
Arati claimed the report was altered against the wishes of the members. “There is the Hansard report to support our case,” Arati said.
On July 5, MPs threw out a preliminary report of the committee that has been investigating the importation of sugar alleged to contain poisonous substances, terming the report “shallow and inconclusive”.
The joint committee was tasked by the House to investigate claims of importation of contraband sugar and tax evasion.
It was also to confirm if the sugar in the market contains mercury, copper and lead as alleged by some government officials.Kenya consumes 870,000 tonnes of sugar each year but domestic production has slumped due to high costs, old and inefficient sugar-crushing machinery, and mismanagement and theft of farmers’ funds.
Local production was nearly 380,000 tonnes of sugar last year, a 41 percent drop from about 638,000 tonnes a year earlier, largely as a result of a severe drought in the first quarter of 2017, according to government data. Any shortfall is usually filled by duty-free imports from the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).
Executives in the sugar industry say the import permits are usually handed out to well-connected individuals in an opaque process that distorts the market and puts local producers at a disadvantage.
The parliamentary report also recommended that former Agriculture Minister Willy Bett be investigated to find why he allowed 14 companies to import the duty-free sugar.
Bett, who was appointed ambassador to India earlier this year, was not immediately available for comment.