MPs to grill KRA officials over disappearance of condemned sugar

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MPs are scheduled to meet officials from the Kenya Revenue Authority on Thursday, in the ongoing probe into the disappearance of condemned sugar.

Members of the Trade, Industry and Cooperatives Committee will also meet the management of Galgamesh Enterprises and Vine Park Ltd.

Some 20,000 bags of sugar of 50kg each were shipped from Zimbabwe to Mombasa on June 30, 2018, but mysteriously disappeared from the Vine Park Industry warehouse in Thika in April.

Officials fear the condemned sugar could have been repackaged and sold to unsuspecting Kenyans.

On July 7, a director of a company at the centre of the disappearance of the cargo told the James Gakuya-led committee that KRA officials know who stole the sugar.

Peter Mwangi, director of Vinepack Limited, told the committee KRA officials sealed the godown ahead of determining whether eight conditions set for transportation and destruction were met.

He said KRA officials later unsealed the godown where the sugar had been stored only to find the stores empty.

Kenya Bureau of Standards ordered the condemned sugar to be taken to a warehouse in Machakos and appointed Galgamesh Enterprises and Assets and Cargo to undertake the destruction.

This was not done as the said company requested Kebs to allow them to convert it into ethanol for industrial use.

It did not happen as KRA wrote to them and the government multi-agency team that was to oversee the destruction directing that the condemned sugar be taken to Thika under the supervision of Vinepack Limited and Assets Cargo who would use it to manufacture industrial ethanol.