I’m skeptical about this mercury in sugar story. Chemistry was my favourite subject in high school.
I have a premonition that Matiangi is playing a dangerous that will affect innocent industrious government officers like KEBS managing director Charles Ongwae who might appear as if they have failed on performing their duties.
How did mercury find itself on sugar? Mercury is a heavy metal and therefore relatively expensive. At today’s rates, the cost of pure mercury is $48 per 100g. And the cost of mercury in bulk is $1.74 per 100 grams.
That is the cost of 100 grams of mercury is the same as the cost of 50kg of sugar, if a kg goes for Ksh 100. To add mercury to sugar would not make any economic sense, as it adds nothing to the quality of sugar.
The only other reason is if the addition of mercury was deliberately done to contaminate the sugar imports, notify the Ports to hold it, and impound it for destruction because of being substandard and unhealthy for human consumption.
How it found itself in a far off place being packaged, after being impounded, can be one long story. Who labelled them as “not fit for human consumption” and how did the contraband find itself hundreds of miles away from the entity who declared them so?
The only other reason is that the contamination was done with the evil motive of the mass poisoning of a population. This is a highly toxic metal with serious effects on the nervous, digestive, respiratory and immune systems. Poisoning can be fatal.
The levels being reported could possibly not be as a result of bioaccumulation and biomagnification. So what is happening? Who is an expert? Come here and teach us.
