Uganda: East African Community Deals Irk Traders
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
New Vision (Kampala)
25 August 2008
Posted to the web 26 August 2008
Henry Mukasa and Madinah Tebajjukira
Kampala
TRADERS are angry over what they called unfair trade agreements Uganda has signed with other East Africa Community (EAC) partners.
They said the pacts were negatively affecting their businesses and also complained to Parliament that the officials who negotiated for the country in Arusha, the community headquarters, endorsed deals that only favoured Kenyans.
The concerns are contained in a report of the committee on tourism, trade and industry on the budget estimates for the 2008/2009 financial year.
The traders, who said they supported the regional integration, however, noted that it was moving too fast and to their disadvantage.
"The EAC was supposed to be private sector-driven but the reality on the ground is that the business community is being left behind. Trade issues agreed by the member states are not practiced by some states," they said.
The committee head, Kiiza Rwebembera, who on Friday read the report to MPs, pointed out that polythene bags below 30 microns had been banned in Uganda but were being exported from Kenya.
"These bags find their way to Uganda yet our manufacturers stopped producing them. This is not fair to us," read the petition.
Relevant Links
The businessmen also observed that many non-tax barriers remained existed between the member states despite the Customs Union protocol.
Read comments. Write your own.
|
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Copyright © 2008 New Vision. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Make allAfrica.com your home page
|
RSS Feed
Sign up for FREE daily 'top headlines' by email >> | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | My Account | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
