President Uhuru Kenyatta has banned the sale of scrap metal because of increased vandalism.

Uhuru was speaking at the National Police College main campus in Kiganjo, Nyeri County where he presided over cadets passing-out parade.

He said the government has put a temporary prohibition on scrap metal trade from Thursday until proper guidelines are put in place to ensure the materials are not illegally acquired.

“As of today, we will no longer allow, and we have put a moratorium on the export or buying and selling of any scrap material until we have put in place proper guidelines that will ensure that that material is not coming from the hard-won investments that the Kenyan people have made,” Uhuru said.

The president reiterated that the government will not allow the destruction of the country's infrastructure for the benefit of a few individuals.

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“We will not allow you to destroy that which is for the growth and development of our country to benefit a few individuals’ pockets…that we will not permit,” the president said.

The Head of State also decreed that the law be applied against any offenders according to the crimes they have committed. He termed the venture by the unscrupulous offenders as economic sabotage.

“I direct that legal action be taken against offenders according to the crimes they have committed. That is economic sabotage. You are sabotaging your country’s economy and I believe the law is very clear as to how such people need to be dealt with,” Uhuru cautioned.

The president was speaking against the backdrop of the recent monumental power outage that occurred on Tuesday last week.

Investigations by a task force comprising KPLC and KETRACO revealed the outage was caused by the collapse of vandalised high voltage power towers on the Kiambere-Embakasi power line and later Embakasi-Suswa power line.