A Loitoktok court has charged two Kenyan drivers for transporting scrap batteries to Tanzanian without a licence.
The drivers, Francis Njoroge and Isaac Njama are facing a jail term of up to 20 years or a fine of Ksh20 million each after they admitted that they were ferrying the product without a licence from the National Environment Management Authority (Nema).
The two have become the first victims of a tough law that was imposed to criminalize exportation of the scrap metals.
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The owners of the trucks the drivers were using to transport the materials will also forfeit the vehicles to the State as per the Scrap Metals Act.
Through a law that was enacted in 2015, Kenya banned the exportation of scrap metals which includes spent-lead-acid-batteries (SLABs).
The strict measure of the exportation of the material was put to help support the retention of raw materials for value addition purposes and provide a stringent environment for the exportation of lead.