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Health Cabinet Secretary James Macharia has told a House committee that only the Cabinet can lift the ban on the use of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) .
Macharia told the departmental Committee on Agriculture, Livestock and Co-operatives that the ban still stands and warned Government agencies against making comments contrary to the ban.
“I have to emphasise that for us to lift the ban, it has to go through the Cabinet. No ministry or department has the mandate to make comments contrary to what was agreed,” Macharia told the committee chaired by Mandera North MP Adan Mohamed Nooru.
The CS revealed that various competing interests locally and abroad sought to have the Government lift the ban, which was imposed in November 8, 2012 following a petition by small-scale farmers, consumers and grassroots conservation groups to have the Government enforce legislation mandating industry to label genetically modified crops.
He revealed that the task force has so far spent over Sh4 million on its investigations.
Among the organisations which campaigned for the lifting of the ban was the Melinda Gates Foundation.
“There has been a lot of lobbying. We had a meeting with Melinda Gates, but we didn’t take a position; we had to wait for the report of the task force that we formed to investigate the issue,” he said.
Macharia added: “There is a lot of commercial interest in the matter. Since we are guided by the law, we cannot compromise on safety. We shall only be guided by what the experts say,” he said.
The task force report is set to be presented to the minister today.
Pulled out
Willy Tonui, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Biosafety Authority (NBA), mandated with the general supervision and control of the transfer, handling and use of GMOs, told the committee that he decided to pull out of the task force after realising that its terms of reference touched on matters that had already been settled by the body through research.
According to Tonui, the question of the effects of GMOs on plant and animal life has already been settled by his organisation, and his input would not have been any different.
“As the person in charge of NBA, I looked at the terms of reference for the task force and saw that, it was what we do in the organisation,” he said.
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