The government on Thursday ordered the release of all ethanol held at various Ports and customs to be used to manufacture alcohol-based sanitisers for public use.
Through head of public service Joseph Kinyua, the government said the sanitisers will be distributed for free to Kenyans as part of the government measures to control the spread of coronavirus in the country.
Kinyua in a statement said corporations in the oil industry had agreed to volunteer to produce the sanitisers to meet the rising demand.
“Kenya Pipeline Company will utilise an accountability framework for the manufacture and distribution of the sanitizers,” Kinyua said.
He further directed that the ethanol be released to the KPC which will, in turn, liaise with the oil industry players for expedited manufacture and distribution.
On Tuesday, Health CS Mutahi Kagwe had called on members of the public to use soap and water in order to bring down the skyrocketing prices of the sanitisers.
“If you use soap then definitely you will bring down the demand, hence automatically lowering the prices,” Kagwe said.
Prices of sanitisers have been going up with some retail outlets like the clean shelf supermarket being ordered by CAK to refund their customers they had overcharged.
The management apologised after one of the staff members hiked the price of Tropikal hand sanitizer amid coronavirus panic in the country.
The management in a statement admitted that the hike happened at their Ruaka branch and termed it as an ‘individual error’.
