Why Do You Reject our Products?, Uganda To Protest Against Kenya’s Ban

By: Twinomujuni Catherine

It’s becoming a norm for Kenya to abandon Uganda’s agricultural products, they started with banning sugarcane and now few days back, they banned Uganda’s maize from entering their country.

This left a lot of Uganda’s maize exporters stranded on border of Uganda and Kenya with their products.

Uganda government through ministry of Trade threatened to protest against Kenya’s decision to impose ban on Uganda’s maize grain.

While addressing media yesterday in Kampala, the Minister for Trade, Industry and Cooperatives, Hon. Amelia Kyambadde revealed that a protest note is going to be issued to Kenyan government because they don’t have scientific explanation to back up their claims that Uganda’s maize is of poor quality.

They should have given official communication because at the moment all these are allegations. The protest note is purposely to complain about the mode of imposing the ban. Kenya should have issued a warning before imposing the ban“says minister Kyambadde while in ministerial meeting.

It should be remembered that it is this week when Kenyan government through the department of Agriculture and Food Authority banned importation of maize from Uganda and Tanzania.

However, Amelia says her ministry didn’t receive any official communication regarding the ban.
She adds that the Ugandan government wants Kenya to produce laboratory evidence that led to such decisions of the ban.

Hon. Kyambadde went a head to urge traders to shift focus to other markets like DRC and the Africa Continental free Trade Areas.