EDITORIAL: EXPEDITE INDUSTRIALISATION PLANS WITH UNIDO SUPPORT
Despite the huge demand for pharmaceutical products in the six-member nations of the East African Community (EAC), existing manufacturers have nonetheless failed to fully utilize the inherent opportunities therein. As it is, the EAC countries still import about 70 percent of their annual pharmaceutical needs – nearly 50 percent of that being imported from Asia, especially from India and China.
This is most disconcerting for the regional integration bloc, some of whose member countries have been politically independent from foreign rule beginning in the early 1960s.
This serious lapse in failing to be self-sufficient in the pharmaceutical-cum-medicinal drugs stakes is largely blamed on a persisting lack of financial and other resources in the Health-care sector, including pharmaceutical skills and affordable technologies.
But – perhaps as the legendary Sisters of Fate would have it – there seems to be a light at the end of what has been a dark tunnel for two generations or so.
There indeed is a glimmer of hope in this, what with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (Unido) smartly stepping in the breach.
Unido has expressed an intention to support the EAC countries in “developing a strong pharmaceutical industry for the manufacture of assorted medicinal drugs and vaccines.
When he visited the EAC headquarters in Arusha last Friday, the Unido Representative in Tanzania and Mauritius, Dr Stephen Kargbo, said Unido and the African Union would together fast-track the Second Phase (2017-2027) of the 2011 EAC Regional Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan of Action to reduce pharmaceutical imports from the current 70 to 50 percent.
This is good news indeed as the world contends with the Covid-19 pandemic and numerous other health maladies, treatment of which we continue to depend on imported medicines.
Unido and the other stakeholders must also focus on other industrial segments, in terms of value chains, comparative advantages, barriers to all-inclusive socioeconomic development, etc.
Formalise HIRING OF HOUSE HELPS
Several firms have been established in recent years to recruit house helps, who are trained and later hired out. However, the main method that families use to obtain house helps is through word of mouth—someone who knows someone asking for a house help from upcountry.
A lot has also been written about relations between house helps and their employers. There have been reported cases of abuse—physical and sexual— and denial of payment. But some house helps have also been reported to abuse their positions by mistreating their employers’ young children.
The most recent incident was in Mwanza Region where a house help was accused of stealing an eight-month-old baby. It was not yet clear why the baby was stolen. Incidents like these further complicate relationships between house helps and their employers. They erode the element of trust between the two parties.
The government needs to put in place clear guidelines on the matter so that the rights of both parties are safeguarded. It is time the employer-house help relationship was formalised for the betterment of society’s welfare.
