Imenti Central Member of Parliament Moses Kirima has come out to enlighten Kenyans on the copper and mercury-stained sugar import that remains the talk in the country.
Speaking on Radio Citizen on Wednesday morning, the lawmaker noted that contrary to what many may think that the metals were deliberately added to the sugar, they were actually in the sugar cane.
He added that the harmful metals found their way into the cane in form of soil nutrients back in Brazil where the cane was produced, before being processed to produce the sugar.
‘’Unapopanda mimea yanachukua madini yaliyo kwenye mchanga. Hiyo miwa ilipandwa mahali ambapo palikua na madini hayo ndio maana sukari pia iko nazo (plants absorb the minerals in the soil under them and the cane took the metals as the soil was rich in them),’’ he explained.
On Tuesday, the state through the Ministry of Health confirmed that 60% of the close to a million metric tons imported by millers has tested positive for the metals and is unfit for human use.
The scandal has also landed the Cabinet Secretaries in the relevant ministries (Interior, Agriculture, Trade and Industrialisation and Finance) in trouble, with a section of leaders from the Sugar belt regions petitioning President Uhuru Kenyatta to commission a tribunal to hold them accountable and fire culpable individuals.