When the sky over Kampala, the capital of Uganda, gradually lights up, James Kajubi is already up, preparing for the day. Nearby, a swirl of merchants are busy unwrapping plastic bags full of second-hand clothes while others chant the prices to anyone who passes by. The hustle and bustle of the market may have its days numbered: last month, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni announced a ban on the import of used clothing, which he called “dead white people’s clothes.” The reason, he assured, is that it prevents the growth of national textile industries.
“We have new clothing producers (in Uganda), but they are not able to enter the market,” lamented Museveni at the groundbreaking ceremony for nine factories in an industrial park in the city of Mbale, in the east of the country. “These factories employ more than 2,000 young people, and many are making clothes, but they cannot sell them if the market is flooded with dead people’s clothes. When a white person dies, they gather their clothes and send them to Africa (…) That’s why I declare war on second-hand clothes,” said the leader — who, at 78 years old, has been in power since 1986. — according to statements reported by Ugandan media. Museveni also announced a ban on the import of electrical cables and meters.
Uganda imports an average of 6,668 metric tons of second-hand clothing per month and collects €19.88 billion from them, according to the country’s Revenue Authority. The import of second-hand clothing multiplied by five between 2001, from 25.6 million euros to 128 million in 2016, according to a report by the Economic Research Policy Centre.
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Since the president’s announcement, James Kajubi has been worried, unsure whether authorities will begin cracking down on merchants selling used clothing. “It’s stressful to think that they can close my business at any moment,” confesses this 34-year-old graduate in Information Technology, who was unable to get a job from what he studied and is now dedicated to selling used clothing in the Saint Balikudembe market. , in Kampala. “If they forbid us to sell second-hand clothes, where are we going to get to eat?” He wonders. His colleague John Katumba, who has been importing these materials for 18 years, fears losing the three containers of clothing he has bought from India. Now they are thinking of changing their line of business. “You can’t wake up and suddenly make this decision to ban secondhand,” he says, of the president’s announcement. “This is taking away our freedom to earn a living. My request to the Government is to allow us to sell used clothing, which is not illegal, like the sale of drugs.”
It is still unclear how the ban will be enforced. Bbosa Ibrahim, spokesperson for the Uganda Revenue Authority, explains that his institution is working jointly with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and the Ministry of Commerce to develop the new legislation. “Citizens will be informed of the details in due course,” he stresses.
Abel Mwesigwa, CEO of Kampala City Traders-Uganda, an association of traders in the country, assures that, with the ban, President Museveni “aims to impress Chinese traders at the expense of Ugandan traders”, amid the deterioration of the relations with the West after the promulgation of a very harsh law against homosexuality in the month of May that has provoked international criticism. For now, Mwesigwa adds, his professional association is going to present a petition to the Government to prevent Ugandans from being left without jobs. By his calculations, approximately four million people – including importers, distributors, street vendors or transporters – are employed in some way in the second-hand clothing industry.
Walter Atiku, a Ugandan economist, believes President Museveni’s move is aimed at controlling inflation by limiting Uganda’s spending of foreign exchange (dollars) across borders. Atiku notes: “Right now, (Uganda’s) central bank currency reserves are declining. The president wants to restrict all dollar outflows to prevent things from being imported that do not contribute anything to the country’s economy, because it is necessary to stabilize the local currency.” However, he points out, the ban on used clothing could harm the Ugandan economy, as it provides a source of income at a time when the World Bank has decided to suspend future financing of projects in Uganda due to the approval of its homophobic law.
Garments from Europe and the USA
At least 70% of second-hand clothing in all of Africa comes from Europe and the United States, according to the NGO Oxfam. This is where the expression used by President Museveni comes from, “dead white clothes”, used especially in Ghana, the country in the world that imports the most second-hand clothes in the world. Imports total 214 million dollars annually, about 200 million euros, according to the 2021 Observatory of Economic Complexity report. This represents 10% of the sale of second-hand clothing for sale in the world, compared to the scarce 2% that comes to Uganda. As a consequence of this avalanche of textiles, Ghana suffers from serious pollution problems in its rivers.
“The export of used clothing to poor countries has become an escape valve for systematic overproduction and a stealthy flow of waste that should be illegal,” denounced in February Changing Markets Foundation, an organization that defends production and sustainable trade and who published research on the export of these products from the European Union to Kenya. In this case, the EU sent 112 million items of second-hand clothing to this African country in 2021 alone, of which more than 56 million were unusable because they were dirty or damaged. And, of the latter, at least 37 million had been manufactured with synthetic materials. Organizations such as Greenpeace warn that materials such as polyester, which are not biodegradable, end up, after being burned or discarded, in the food chain of animals and humans in the form of microplastics.
Morrison Rwakakamaba, chairman of the Uganda Investment Authority, a government entity, insists that the ban on second-hand clothing will boost the growth of local textile industries, saying it will “encourage citizens to invest in the textile sector.” and will make cotton prices improve for the benefit of farmers.” Ugandan economist Walter Atiku, for his part, sees it as difficult for Ugandan factories to meet the demand of a population of 47 million people. Currently, the country has only two vertically integrated textile industries, that is, capable of controlling all phases of production. Almost 95% of Uganda’s cotton is exported as lint or linter, a material used to make fabrics and textile accessories. The African continent is among the main producers of raw materials for the textile sector in the world, but 90% is exported in semi-finished form, that is, not as garments ready for the consumer.
“Most Ugandans are poor, and that is why many of them prefer used clothes, because they are cheaper compared to new clothes,” says Abel Mwesigwa, CEO of the Kampala City Traders-Uganda trade association. The country’s poverty rates, however, have been cut in half in the last three decades, according to data from the Afrobarometer portal, but in 2020, 30% of the population still lived on less than $1.77 a day ( 1.67 euros).
In 2016, the East African Community, a regional economic grouping of which Uganda is a part, agreed to ban imports of used clothing in 2019, but Rwanda was the only country to implement it.
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