There is rising concern among Uganda and Kenya business community over the treatment of list of imports by Uganda. Kenya traders want Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya’s finance minister to introduce new custom tax in the 2011-2012 budgets to shield them from unfair competition posed by Ugandan products made from imports imported duty free.
During a prime minister’s round table recently, Kenya’s top government officials and Kenya’s private sector Alliance noted that Uganda’s list of goods imported duty free was allowed by East African community (EAC) Finance Ministers only up to June 2011 and should end permanently by June 1st .
They also agreed to introduce tariff to caution any industry that is at first affected by Uganda’s list and if it is extended again past June 2011 deadline.
However experts said introducing new tariffs almost 6 years after Kenya scrapped all custom taxes on goods from her EAC states is likely to attract a similar move from Uganda which is Kenya’s top trading partner threatening the regions integration process.
The contagious exception scheme community called the Uganda list was initially introduced by President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni in 1994 to help rebuild the countries industry capacity after decades of civil strife. The scheme allows the countries industrialist to import without paying the 10% common external tariff that other member states apply on goods.
By Mugisa Isaac Mathias