Ban export of scrap metals, firms demand
PHOTO | SULEIMAN MBATIAH | FILE Officials from the Municipal Council of Nakuru carry away vandalised street lighting poles found at garage in Nakuru town on July 5, 2012.
What you need to know:
- Booming trade is blamed for rise in vandalism of road signs and guard rails
Exporters of scrap metal have been blamed for the growing vandalism which threatens to destroy key infrastructure.
Environmental experts and road agencies that have lost billions of shillings to vandals are now calling on the government to ban export of scrap metal.
Road signs, guard rails, electricity and telephone cables have been stolen or destroyed by vandals. Kenya Power, for instance, loses Sh6 billion annually due to vandalism.
Speaking in Nairobi during at a meeting on how to end the vice, Prof Karanja Njoroge, the chairman of the Centre for Environmental Action, a non-governmental organisation, said the local aluminium dealers, popularly known as Jua Kali artisans, are not to blame for the rising vandalism. Their demand is low.
Ministry’s defence
“If the government stopped export of scrap metals by greedy businessmen, we would not be experiencing the wanton destruction of public utilities,” he said.
Prof Njoroge blamed the Ministry of Trade for allowing the export of scrap metals, saying it was strange that the country was an exporter of metal yet it did not have metal deposits.
However the ministry’s spokesperson Richard Abura absolved it from blame saying its role was to issue licenses to dealers. “We have not taken any measures because there is no law preventing anyone from dealing in scrap metal,” he said adding that it was up to the Customs Department at the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) to allow export of goods.
Mr Aditya Apoorva, a local investor who put up a factory to recycle aluminium two years ago, says the plant has been lying idle because the government has on two occasions extended the export window, denying his factory raw materials.
“The State has promised that it will stop the exports but it has continued to renew the export window,” he said referring to a one-year window handed to exporters three years ago to export “excess” metal.
The government placed a restriction on export of scrap metal, where those involved in the trade are expected to adhere to strict rules such as declaring their source of the scrap metal to prevent vandalism but he said that has not deterred vandals .
