A Loitoktok court has charged two Kenyan drivers for transporting scrap batteries to Tanzanian without a license.
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 license 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.
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.
