The biotech research community in Kenya heaved with relief when the government lifted a decade-old ban on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in October last year.
This would face headwinds immediately when court cases stopped the regulator, the National Biosafety Authority (NBA), from facilitating the distribution, importation, transactions and growth of GMOs.
Dr Roy Mugiira, chief executive of NBA, was the regulator’s founding CEO when it was set up in 2009.
“We have what it takes. Kenyans should have confidence in our institutions and our professionals. We became a key participant in this subsector when we signed the Cartagena Protocol in 2002 and assented to it in 2003.
This made Kenya a State party to the framework that governs this technology globally. In 2006, we crafted the National Biotechnology Development Policy.
We followed that up with the enactment of the National Biosafety Act in 2009. This is the primary Act that establishes the NBA,” [Dr. Mugiira explained.]
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“Our role as the regulator is to stand between the sceptics, researchers, developers and commercial interests and to prevent discourse that is full of myths that have no grounding in science.”
