PH
The government yesterday maintained that it never signed any trade agreement for Kenya to import cheap sugar from Uganda.
Acting Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Adan Mohammed said the purported deal that has triggered political debate is “non-existent”.
He said the President does not have to visit Uganda for its sugar to access our market.
“Uganda sugar has access to the Kenya market under the EAC customs union,” Mohammed said.
Teh CS said he was issuing an official government position on the matter.
Mohammed said the state is concerned about reports that presidents Uhuru Kenyatta and Yoweri Museveni signed a deal to allow importation of Uganda sugar into Kenya.
“The government wishes to clearly state that no trade agreement or any other deal was signed between Kenya and Uganda,” he said.
However the CS was hard pressed to explain why it had taken the ministry long to respond in the face of the political storm the claims have caused.
Mohammed could not explain the deal Deputy President William Ruto and other senior officials in Jubilee have been supporting in the last week since the matter surfaced in the public domain.
The Ministry also circulated to journalists a communique released at the end of Uhuru’s state visit to Uganda that makes no mention of the deal.
