Reported by
Faridah N Kulumba
Africa-Press – Uganda. Uganda is heading to lose billions of money as Kenya government added maize and chicken on the list of banned exports from Uganda and Tanzania.
This follows the directive from Kenya’s Director General of Agriculture and Food Authority Kello Harsama to Commissioner of Customs Pamela Ahago to suspend any exports of maize into his country with immediate effect from 5 March 2021.
This comes a week after president of Kenya Uhuru Kenyata vowed to strengthen cross border trade and regional integration, after taking over Chairmanship of East African Community.
In January 2021 , Kenya government through Dr Obadiah Njagi, the Director of Veterinary Services also banned all the Importation of chicken carcasses, meat and eggs and that this was done to support Kenyan producers to recover from the trade disruptions in their livestock by Covid-19 pandemic since last year.
Why Kenya blocks maize import from neighbours
According to the letter by Mr Kello Director General of Agriculture and Food Authority, said that Kenya has been conducting surveillance on the safety of food imports and that the test results for maize imported from Uganda and Tanzania have revealed high levels of mycotoxins that are consistently beyond safety limits.
“Mycotoxins particularly aflatoxins and fumonisins are known to be carcinogenic. Over the years a number of acute and chronic ablation related illnesses have been recorded in Kenya including death.” said Kello.
The moulds grow on variety of different crops and foodstuffs including cereals, nuts, spices, dried fruits, apples and coffee beans most especially under warm and humid conditions.
How much Uganda is likely to lose?
Uganda exports at least 90 percent of its maize to Kenya with a cumulative average of 33,620 tones.
Between January 2020 and January 2021, Uganda’s maize exports stood at 351,420 tones with a monthly average of 50,203 tones.
In 2020 when the Kenya- Uganda borders were closed due to Covid-19 pandemic, all the prices of products that Uganda exports to Kenya like Maize, eggs, pineapples and chickens went down almost to a half.
So according to data from Bank of Uganda, this suspension will see Uganda lose an average of 447 billion shillings that is 121million dollars.
Uganda’s reaction to the ban
The Ministry of Trade commissioner for external trade Emammnuel Mutahunga explained that Uganda has not yet received a formal communication concerning the ban from Kenya, but if they do they will challenge it Daily Monitor.
“Kenya has just assumed leadership of the East Africa Community at secretariat and executive levels, i doubt they would be choosing to do this at this moment. If indeed it is authentic, we expect them to formally notify us in line with international trade protocols. If, and when they are in violation of protocols, we will have our reasons to exercises our rights under the protocols in such circumstances,” said Mr Mutahunga.
Hajjat Hamiima Ssempebwa Manager of Hajjat and Hajji Farmers Kiwenda in an interview with our AFP reporter said that, they are so worried about this maize export ban, and she thinks that it is going to affect them so much during this period when schools are still partially closed and they have been earning more from Kenya being their leading export.
Does this include” day old chicks as well?”