Kiambu senator, Karungo Thang'wa, has warned that cartels are flooding Kenyan markets with dairy products from Uganda despite the government limiting imports from the neighbouring country.
On Thursday, June 15, the senator asked the Senate Standing Committee on Trade, Industrialisation, and Tourism, to investigate and issue a statement on the proliferation of dairy products from Uganda.
He also sought to establish whether regulations were formulated and implemented to protect the Githunguri Dairy Farmers Cooperative Society and other dairies from unfair competition from neighbouring countries.
Foreign products, he lamented, would edge out the Kenyan dairy farmers. Additionally, he requested the committee to explain if the temporary ban on milk from Uganda by the Kenya Dairy Board will favour Kenyan milk producers and farmers.
According to the lawmaker, measures should be taken to ensure a guaranteed minimum price on milk sales in Kenya in view of existing trade agreements between Kenya and Uganda.
Thang'wa also sought to be assured that Kenyan dairy farmers have a competitive advantage and are at par with other traders in the market.
In May 2023, the Ugandan Dairy Development Authority (DDA) argued that the directive by Ruto's administration to limit its products from entering the Kenyan market affected its traders.
The authority lamented that Kenya slashed the number of export permits by an average of 20 per cent.
"Other products are getting permits except for milk powder but the market is still one and Uganda milk players are exporting products there," stated DDA Executive Director, Samson Akankiza Mpiira.
The stakeholders urged President Yoweri Museveni to engage with Ruto to revoke the ban.
"It is important to quickly move as a country and solve this matter at a corporate and bilateral level to ensure that milk farmers and those involved in the dairy sector do not incur losses," remarked, Mike Mukula, the patron of the Uganda Clearing and Freight Forwarders' Association.
To solve the crisis, Uganda resorted to promoting local consumption of milk through school milk-feeding programmes and exporting it to other countries such as Algeria, Egypt, United Arabs Emirates, Japan, Ethiopia, and Tanzania.
Prior to the ban, Uganda exported nearly 700 million litres of milk to Kenya annually.
