Peter Mwangi emotionally told the National Assembly Trade Committee on Thursday that he collapsed when shown the empty Thika stores by KRA and officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.
Mwangi is the owner of Vinepack, a company that was supposed to store the sugar until it could be converted into industrial ethanol by another firm. The stolen sugar was to be sold to unsuspecting consumers.
At some point, the man fought off tears, disrupting the sitting.
Narrating his ordeal before the committee chaired by Embakasi North MP James Gakuya, Mwangi said he was tortured and denied food for 72 hours by the officers who didn’t want to hear his side of the story.
He said the six guards who were on duty at the godown have disappeared.
He also told the probe team that CCTV cameras mounted at the facility disappeared.
Mwangi said it all started when a woman named Faith Kihara who introduced herself as a KRA officer on May 3 told him to rush to the godown. He had been having breakfast at a hotel on Thika Road.
“Getting there I found three Subarus full of DCI officers. They asked me to break the seals but the godown was empty. I was shocked and collapsed,” Mwangi narrated.
“I saw darkness and fainted," he said.
“I woke up in hospital in handcuffs. I was taken to Mombasa where I was tortured for three days, I was not even allowed to pee, I literally peed on myself. I was tortured for 72 hours and later given a police bond of Sh100,000.”
Mwangi, who is facing charges of theft of sugar, claimed he was being framed and wants the committee to ask the Kenya Revenue Authority to explain how the condemned sugar left the stores.
“I wish KRA was here to tell us where the sugar went,” he said.
He claimed the revenue authority was in charge of the store after placing two seals on the godown.
The man asked the committee to hear him in camera, a closed-door hearing. His request was granted.
The Trade committee will have a closed session with Mwangi on July 11.
MPs, however, put him to task to explain how a consignment of such magnitude could disappear without his guards getting wind of the operation.
“Do you want to say you were not in control of your warehouse, 40 containers cannot just be processed within an hour? You want to say that nobody communicated to you that something was happening?” Gakuya asked..
Mwangi said he only realised the warehouse was empty after being called to the godown by the KRA and DCI officers.
“The moment KRA put on their seals, they are in charge. If I knew that the 20,000 bags were gone, would I go there when they (guards) called?" he asked.
Mwangi said he has suffered since the condemned sugar vanished explaining all his bank accounts have been frozen, forcing him to sack all his employees.
“Instead of being a complainant, KRA is now suing me. They have frozen our accounts and we cant do anything, we have been forced to send all our employees home,” he said.
The consignment that arrived in the country in 2018 was rejected by Kebs on the account of non-compliance with the requirements as it had no indication of dates of manufacture and expiry.
The law requires that condemned goods are either reshipped or destroyed, but Kebs settled on the latter on a request of the consignee who identified Ocean Freight to coordinate the destruction.
Galgamesh company was assigned the job but suggested the sugar be converted to alternative use — conversion into ethanol for industrial use. Kebs agreed.
