Uganda’s First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for East African affairs Hon. Rebecca Kadaga has welcomed the initiative by Kenyan President HE. William Ruto to lessen trade restrictions on Uganda.
Hon. Kadaga expressed optimism with Ruto’s shift in policy while speaking before delegates at the East African Business Council Board on regional integration at Speke Resort Munyonyo on February 3rd, 2023.
She condemned in stronger terms the practice of trade protectionism pursued by some bloc members, and called for the operationalisation of the Trade Remedies Committee, wondering why the EAC Secretary General Peter Mathuki has remained silent about it, despite a strong push to operationaze the idea by ministers and the business community.
It should be remembered that Kenya under Uhuru Kenyatta pursued a hostile trade policy with Uganda, putting caps on some of the imports from her neighbour, but with HE. Ruto, the state of affairs is changing rapidly.
Ruto has since his inuaguration in September 2022 spearhead a reversal in trade policy with Uganda and lifted some trade restrictions on Uganda’s goods, chiefly milk, poultry products and sugar.
East African leaders present at the summit also welcomed this new development, saying it offers greater prospects for integration and a rapid drift to regional socio-econoomic transformation.
During Uhuru Kenyatta’s reign, Kenyan authorities seized Uganda’s products entering their country, which produced frosty relations with Uganda in the field of trade, with President Uhuru choosing to stay silent on the matter.
In retaliation, Uganda also attempted to block rice imports from Kenya and Tanzania, responding to the latter’s act of banning entry of Uganda’s sugar and maize into its market, saying it could produce enough for its domestic consumption.
In one of his remarks which supplied a ray of hope for greater prospects of integration through heightened trade opportunities between two nations, Ruto said no product from Uganda should be denied entry into Kenya because the sole purpose of creating EAC was to foster free trade.
Hon. Kadaga bitterly criticized African states which close their borders to bar entry of commodities from their neighbours, saying ordinary citizens and the business community pays a heavy price for this.
She regretted the recent outbreak of the M-23 insurgency in DRC which has led to the flarring up of tensions between Rwanda and the former, something that has undermined the would be trade opportunities for the EAC business community as a result of reopening the Uganda-Rwanda border.
John Bosco Kalisa, the Chief Executive East African Business Community (EAC) also while speaking to the delegates at the same summit said the resolution of these disputes should culminate into the lifting of more non-tariff barriers to trade in the region.
Speaking during the same event, the EABC Chairperson Angelina Ngalula issued direct appeals to Kadaga to strongly advocate for the EAC finalisation plan for the products harmonization strategy, saying its delay has been used by some states as a pretext to pursue their own selfish interests.
It should be recalled that the idea of harmonization was suggested in 2012 as part of the EAC integration tenet but it has not yielded to the expectations of its proponents.
The harmonization idea meant national standards of individual countries would be recognized in a way that is in tandem with EAC standards to raise the quality of products on markets in the region and promote intra-regional trade.
Hon. Kadaga also said that selfish interests pursued by individual states in the EAC bloc have greatly undermined political integration, which is the fourth and final pillar of the integration and thus, members have decided to go slow on that idea, which would see all countries in the region form one political entity with one political leader.
Nevertheless, she castigated pioneer states of the EAC like Tanzania for not leading the war against trade barriers and urged Tanzania to drop the idea of a passport, instead of an identity card for travel.
Hon. Kadaga also commissioned the newly appointed EABC Goodwill Ambassadors from Uganda, that is to say; Jim Mwine Kabeho, Dr. Merian Sebunya, Olive Kigongo and Charles Kabera, whom she said will market the integration agenda.
She concluded by advising the EABC board to lobby for political confederation of the EAC as a lasting solution to the non tariff barriers like stringent immigration access, breaches of customs union and the common market.
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