Africa

Trade tiff simmers as Uganda impounds DRC-bound fish from Kenyan traders

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By Barack Oduor | Monday, June 3, 2024

The tension at the border between the neighbouring countries began last Thursday when FPU blocked a truck with registration number UBH652B.

East African states are set for a fresh trade row after tonnes of fish from Kenya heading to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) through Uganda were blocked at Kikorongo near the Mpondwe Border.

Uganda's Fisheries Protection Unit (FPU) and the Ministry of Agriculture Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) detained the trucks and their occupants.

The tension at the border between the neighbouring countries began last Thursday when FPU blocked a truck with registration number UBH652B.

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FPU Spokesperson, Lauben Ndifula, said the fish was impounded after they got information that it was immature or not-ready fish from Uganda that had been smuggled into Kenya through the porous borders of Uganda. The authorities further alleged that the fish, upon being smuggled from Uganda, are repackaged and shipped for export to the DRC as fish from Kenya.

According to Ndifula, a team of officials from the MAAIF was travelling from Kampala to the Mpondwe border to break the seals for verification of the fish consignment.

The truck drivers claimed that the officials impounded their consignments despite presenting all requirements in terms of documentation from the Uganda Revenue Authority and other agencies.

They also decried that from Kikorongo, the army transferred the impounded fish to the Mpondwe Border while demanding that Uganda's tax body break the seals for verification.

In breach of East African Community bilateral trade agreements, impounding fish from Kenya is a violation of a joint communiqué signed between Nairobi and Kampala on March 4, 2022, at the Busia Border, at which it was agreed that Kampala would allow fish consignments from Kenya to transit through its territory without any hindrance.

This is reportedly the second truck with loads of fish to be stopped by authorities in Uganda in one week. Earlier, a truck loaded with fish consignments imported from Kenya, headed for Goma, was stopped in Jinja and only allowed to proceed with its journey two days later.

The new trade standoffs come barely a week after Uganda President Yoweri Museveni's State Visit to Kenya, where he and his counterpart William Ruto signed an understanding that sought to solve the disagreements and return trade between the neighbouring nations to normalcy.

Museveni and Ruto directed their respective ministers of Trade to convene "as soon as possible" to address the bottlenecks that continue to stifle Uganda-Kenya trade.

Uganda remains Kenya's biggest trading partners in terms of exports for the period ending October 2023, according to data published by the Kenya Bureau of Statistics (KEBS) in early January.

Exports to Kenya, mainly iron and steel products, accounted for 31.5 per cent while imports to Uganda, mainly farm produce and petroleum products, made up 43.5 per cent of the total goods sold to the EAC.

But the two countries have sparred over trade over the years, with Kenya blocking several Ugandan products, including milk, poultry, sugar, beef products, and maize, to the chagrin of traders and manufacturers who have called for retaliatory measures or accused the government of not doing enough as Kenyan traders continue to enjoy Uganda's open trade policies.