Displaced persons supplied with expired milk

By Vincent Mabatuk

Nakuru County

Shock gripped internally displaced persons (IDPs) residing at Pipeline camp in Nakuru County after they were supplied with expired milk.

The 4,800 litres of milk supplied by the Government through the Ministry of Special Programmes expired on December 27 last year.

Some of the milk packed in 250ml packets had no manufacture or expiry dates. The milk packets were marked with the New Kenya Cooperative Creameries brand.

Other packets that had an expiry date for March 2011, but the content was already sour.

Interestingly, even the packets without expiry and manufacturing dates had Kenya Bureau of Standard mark of quality.

Following the incident Paul Thiong’o, the camp’s chairman claimed that it was clear that the Government was not serious when dealing with IDPs. "This clearly shows that the Government had been taking us for granted and decided to risk the lives of those still in camps," he claimed.

Stomach complications

He wondered how the milk left the Government stores without the expiry date being detected. Mr Thiong’o said young children who had consumed the milk have developed stomach complications and urged those still holding the milk in their tents to surrender it.

A health officer from Nakuru District visited the camp following the revelation and took away samples for further investigation. Thion’go lamented over food shortage in the camp claiming that they received the last relief food four months ago.

Recently IDP camps were supplied with contaminated maize.