NAIROBI, Kenya — The United Opposition has publicly alleged that a consignment of 25,000 metric tonnes of sugar, deemed unfit for human consumption, is poised to enter the Kenyan market.
In a press release issued on Thursday 31, July 2025 Wiper Movement Party Leader Kalonzo Musyoka claimed that the sugar, which recently docked at the Port of Mombasa, was already en route to Western Kenya to be repackaged and sold to Kenyans.
While the opposition did not specify the origin of the sugar, they stated that it had been declared unfit for consumption at its port of origin.
“We are aware of a cargo of 25,000 MT of sugar that recently landed in our Port of Mombasa. These 25,000 MT of sugar are already on their way to a Western Kenya sugar factory to be repackaged and sold to unsuspecting Kenyans,” the statement read.
“This cargo has already been declared from its port of origin unfit for human public consumption. Yet, the Ruto regime has quickly cleared it. What kind of man is this? What kind of a regime is this that puts their own reprehensible needs before that of the public’s well-being?”
The opposition demanded that the consignment, which they claimed had already been earmarked, be publicly condemned and destroyed.
“Fellow Kenyans, this is a criminal regime that not only resorts to wilful violence against its people and physically harms its populace, making them unfit for public consumption of goods, but also attempts to limit its people via wilful and defunding education, which is a right,” the statement continued.
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The Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS), the government agency responsible for vetting the quality of products intended for the Kenyan market, has yet to issue a statement on the matter.
This is not the first time Kenyans have been caught up in a scandal involving contaminated food. Just over a year ago, in June 2024, the Parliamentary Departmental Committee on Trade tabled a report concerning a separate consignment of contaminated sugar that had mysteriously disappeared from a warehouse in Thika in 2023.
That report concluded that the contaminated sugar was released into the market and sold to unsuspecting consumers, placing the blame on various government agencies, including KEBS, the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), and the Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA).
The sugar was reportedly meant to be converted into ethanol before it vanished.
