Uganda set to petition EAC over Kenya’s milk blockade
Kampala. Uganda will next month present a petition before the East Africa Community Secretariat as it seeks arbitration against a number of trade blockades key among them a ban on milk exports to Kenya.
Uganda and Kenya have for three months now bickered over milk exports with Kenya announcing last week it would not allow cheap milk from Uganda on its market.
Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) outgoing commissioner for customs Mr Dicksons Kateshumbwa, the said at the weekend that Uganda will petition the EAC on the matter during the regional pre-budget meeting scheduled in Arusha, Tanzania next month.
“We shall discuss this matter when we go to Arusha for pre-budget meetings next month [April], so [that] we get an official stand,” he said, noting that on average in the last three months, the trade war cost Uganda close to Ush60 billion in milk exports.
Uganda, according to available data, had before the ban, been shipping close to 450,000 litres of milk to Kenya.
Kenya has largely remained silent on why it is blocking Uganda’s milk from its market with unofficial comments pointing to the need to protect the country’s milk industry from external competition. Last week, Kenya’s Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya was quoted by Daily Nation saying, they had come up with a raft of reforms that sought to protect local farmers from cheap milk imports as well as revive Kenya’s dairy sector. (EAC)
