Nine trucks with 4,720 bags of sugar were impounded in Migori on Wednesday, while heading to Sukari Industries in Homa Bay.
Suspicious county government enforcement officers
placed spikes on a road to stop the drivers of the trucks branded 'Menengai'.
Officer Diana Shem said they were informed that the drivers usually transported sugar at around 4am. They were however stopped at about 6.15 am.
“We were suspicious as the trucks were being escorted by two Probox vehicles with fully armed Administration Police officers and traders of Indian origin,” Shem said.
She said the transporters claimed the vehicles contained soap but that with persistence, they said they were taking the sugar to Sukari Industries
in Ndhiwa, Homa Bay county.
Shem said the group, however, refused to give licences showing they were authorised transporters.
“The team threatened to call senior government officers to release the trucks. We called our seniors. They alerted police who came to the scene,” she said.
Some of the sugar that was confiscated while being transported to Sukari Industries in Ndhiwa, Homa Bay County, at Rongo police station, June 20, 2018. /MANUEL ODENY
Rongo sub-county commissioner Joseph Satia confirmed that the traders told police the sugar was being taken to Sukari for packaging and sale.
Teams from Kenya Revenue Authority, Kenya Bureau of Standard and the Anti-Counterfeit Agency went to Rongo police station, counted the bags and collected samples for testing.
“The team took samples to test them for mercury and copper,” Satia said.
Rongo OCPD Jonathan Kisaka said the truck drivers fled.
Kisaka and Satia also said that a legal team from Sukari went to the station and demanded the release of the trucks, but insisted that they will be held until investigations are completed.
“We will arrest suspects if we find that we have a case," Kisaka said. “We assure the public that we will ensure those found culpable face the full force of the law."
Police kept a mob from torching the vehicles while they were being taken to the station. The protesters noted that illegal trade in sugar was crippling the industry.
Reached for comment, the firm denied that the sugar was contraband or contaminated. A manager of Sukari Industries in Homa Bay, who declined to give his name, told county commissioner Irungu Macharia that their sugar was legal and safe and that it was from the firm’s warehouse in Mombasa.
Police take suspected contraband sugar out of a store in Il Bissil town, Kajiado County, June 20, 2018. /KURGAT MARINDANY
In Kajiado county on Tuesday, more than 500 50kg bags of sugar were seized from several wholesale and retail outlets.
A team of security agents, led by County Commissioner David Kipkemei, raided several outlets in Kitengela, Isinya and Il Bissil towns and took the commodity which was not labelled.
The officers also arrested four people who were found repackaging sugar at a store in Kitengela town.
Kipkemei said tests would be carried out by the government chemist with the help of Kebs.
“We have impounded thousands of kilogrammes of sugar and other goods from Brazil, Zimbabwe and Uganda. I warn those selling contaminated sugar that they will be arrested and charged,” he said.
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