Kenya shelves plan to ban mitumba clothes

In Beijing, China

Kenya has backed away from any plans to impose a ban on second-hand clothes, in a move officials say will leave the fate of local textile dealers to be determined by market forces.

Industrialisation Cabinet Secretary Adan Mohamed has told reporters in Beijing that retaining the flow of these clothes, commonly known as mitumba, into the country will allow both importers and local producers to remain in business.

“Our policy is, of course, that it is our desire to develop and promote our textile industry in our country to create more jobs for people in our country,” he said at a press conference on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, China.

“And through the transition of market forces we would like mitumba clothes to compete with clothes that are produced within East Africa, within Kenya, and if those products are much more competitive and much more consumer-friendly, then of course you will see a reduction in the mitumba business in our country. But it is not going to be through a ban or anything of that nature,” he added.

AGOA FACTOR

This announcement comes just as some US lobbyists are pushing for Kenya to be suspended from the Africa Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) group of countries for supposedly violating the principles of trade between the US and Kenya.

AGOA, which was extended last year, allows exporters from African countries that qualify under certain principles to export their goods into the US without the usual tough restrictions imposed on them.

In turn, the US also gets some preferential treatment, such as African countries accepting their second-hand manufactured goods.

The lobbyists argue an imminent ban could mean Kenya was disobeying the very principles it has benefited from.

But Mr Mohamed claimed the petition is based on a falsehood, denying Kenya was even planning to stop any imports at all.

“Our position is very clear: we have continued to allow mitumba goods to come into our country. We have had no ban in place and that position is clear.

“The petition clearly claims that we have banned those products, which is totally untrue and we are engaging with US authorities in actually clarifying some of those issues,” he said.

LOCAL MANUFACTURERS

For the past two years, the East African Community (EAC) member states of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi have been mulling a joint restriction on second-hand clothes and shoes in a move meant to protect local textile manufacturers but which could harm a multibillion-shilling group of importers.

In 2015, the EAC heads of state agreed to start drafting regulations that could guard local clothes and leather producers and “directed the council of ministers to study modalities for the promotion of textile and leather industries in the region and stopping the importation of used clothes, shoes and other leather products," a joint communique issued after the leaders met said.

These countries were generally looking at ways of boosting domestic manufacturing, creating jobs and shielding their countries from being dumping grounds for used items such as clothes and cars.

Though supported by local producers, the suggestion ran into a wall of lobbies who have benefited from importing second-hand clothes.

Kenya has tried to restrict second-hand clothes in the past without success.

LAWS

Former Finance minister Njeru Githae, now Kenya’s ambassador to the US, argued in a sessional paper in 2012 that second-hand clothes no longer benefited the poor but a group of wealthy importers.

Still, there have been no attendant laws to buttress that policy, so it remains unimplemented.

President Uhuru Kenyatta, when he served as Finance minister, once reduced import duty on used clothes from Sh33 to Sh23 per kilo.

In recent times, though, the President has vowed to support the Export Processing Zones, where most of the local textiles are produced.