Members of Parliament on the Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) have resisted Kampala Capital City Authority’s call to amend the law exempting landlords residing in Kampala’s upscale areas from paying property tax.

The MPs led by the chairperson, Abdu Katuntu (FDC, Bugweri County) were responding to a proposal by KCCA officials led by the Executive Director, Jennifer Musisi, asking Parliament to amend the KCCA Act (2006) and have property owners in the high-end residential areas pay property tax.

According to Musisi, people staying in Kampala’s upscale neighbourhoods do not make any contribution yet they demand a lot from KCCA.

“We want the law on owner occupied exemption to be amended because we feel that all citizens should contribute to the improvement of the city,” Ms. Musisi said.

She added:  “Citizens staying in affluent areas are exempted yet they subject the Authority to heavy demands about maintaining their roads, street lights and are generating a lot of garbage; we want everyone to make a contribution.”

However, in response, Katuntu said that the law applies to all landlords occupying property both in the upscale and low-scale neighbourhoods.

“Regardless of whether you have property in Kololo or Bwaise, as long as you stay in it you are not required to pay property tax so it does not matter where you stay,” Katuntu said.

Katuntu further said that most of the houses in the upscale neighbourhoods like Kololo and Nakasero are being rented out or occupied by businesses and therefore are subject to property tax.

Katuntu also said that tax is supposed to be imposed in a regulated manner and should not be a punishment to citizens.

Katuntu could not countenance Ms Musisi’s argument that it is hard for KCCA to establish whether the property in the posh residential areas is being occupied by the owners or not, saying that it was her job to establish that.

“The job you do is supposed to be challenging and that is why you are highly paid; if it was easy we would not have to go through the rigorous exercise of recruiting you as the best people,” Katuntu said.

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Facebook Messenger is now fully integrated in Jumia Travel’s system as a powerful channel for Customer Service. The integration of customer service for Messenger in Jumia Travel’s system marks a new dawn for its customer service experience, as it offers a live chat experience on Facebook Messenger. The tool can also be used to instantly request for a hotel room on the platform, where the company’s professional Travel Advisors will offer counsel on the best accommodation options as well as make the booking.

As the first African company to integrate Facebook Messenger in its own system, Estelle Verdier, Jumia Travel’s COO and Co-Founder says that this is a “show of our great commitment to always bring the latest technology and high quality services to our customer in Africa”.

On its recently published hospitality report for Africa, Jumia Travel states that 51% of searches done on the website are via smartphones, with 68% of the bookings. This compares to 49% and 32% of searches and bookings respectively done through the desktop.

“In Africa, e-mail penetration has remained low especially because it doesn’t provide a fluent conversational experience and is not fitted for mobile. With Customer Service for Messenger integration, we bring to our customers an instant and convenient way to chat with us on mobile from Facebook. We trust that Facebook Messenger will become a major channel in the coming years, and this new feature allows us to scale the communication with our customers on Messenger,” says Stanislas de Dinechin, Jumia Travel’s Global Head of Customer Service.  

“Facebook Messenger is a major communication channel for most Ugandans and as such, our customers shall receive faster and efficient feedback on their queries, for better service delivery,” says Jumia Travel Uganda’s Country Manager Timothy Mugume.

The tool will also be used to handle customer queries and requests such as airport pickup, and booking modification among others. With a high ‘mobile first’ population in Africa, Facebook Messenger provides a great opportunity to reach people in addition to other social media platforms, as compared to the conventional browser.

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Local traders and other people who import goods into Uganda in disregard of national set standards will face the strong arm of the Uganda National Bureau of Standard (UNBS), its Executive Director Ben Manyindo has warned.

UNBS is the national standards watchdog and its boss Dr. Manyindo has said some individuals are evading the Pre Export Verification of Conformity (PVoC) Standards Program, which requires that all goods, whether for sale, personal use or donations must conform to the Ugandan standards before being shipped to the country.

“Failure to undertake PVOC attracts a 15% CIF penalty in addition to undertaking payment for laboratory fees and inspection,” Dr Manyindo says, adding that any products found to be substandard will have to be re-exported to the country of origin or destroyed at the cost of the importer.

Cost, Insurance and Freight (CIF) is a trade term requiring the seller to arrange for the carriage of goods by sea to a port of destination, and provide the buyer with the documents necessary to obtain the goods from the carrier.

According to Dr Manyindo, the inspection covers all categories of goods as provided for in the UNBS Import Inspection and Clearance Regulations 2015.

Further, Dr. Manyindo says the purpose of the program is to protect Ugandans from consuming and or using substandard goods that are dangerous to their health, safety and also to protect the environment.

In addition, Dr. Manyindo says, the program enables importers to enjoy faster clearance of imports since goods will not be held at entry points pending inspection, testing and issuance of clearance certificates by UNBS. “It enables smooth flow of trade which is critical to all importers and traders,” he added.

The Government of Uganda contracted SGS, Intertek and Bureau Veritus, internationally recognized inspection agencies, to carry out PVoC for general goods on behalf of UNBS.

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Uganda’s Minister of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives, Amelia Kyambadde has said Ugandans and East Africans at large can now afford to buy new clothing, compared to the past decades when they preferred secondhand clothes due to poverty.

“East Africans want a new life. People are able to afford to buy new things,” Kyambadde said, adding that “the demand is now for new clothing.”

The minister’s statement came days ago as senior officials from Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda argued in Washington that their collective phase-out of used clothing imports should not result in any loss of benefits from a US preferential trade programme – the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa).

Minister Kyambadde said the development of local apparel manufacturing would create jobs along a value chain in the form of cotton growing, ginning, weaving, garment manufacturing and other forms of retail business.

Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda are opposing an effort by a US business association to restrict their eligibility for Agoa. The Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles Association (Smart) filed a petition with US trade authorities in March urging that the three countries, along with fellow EAC member Kenya, be deemed ineligible for Agoa’s allowance of duty-free textile and apparel exports to the US market.

Lawrence Bogard, an attorney representing Smart, warned at the recent US government inquiry that the association’s member companies would suffer major losses in jobs and revenues if the EAC bans the importation of used-clothing.

Kenya would have far more to lose from suspension of its duty-free textile export privileges under Agoa than would any of the other EAC countries. The country sold USD 394 million worth of textiles and clothing on the US market last year, compared to the total USD43 million sum of Agoa trade for Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

The opposing parties presented their comments to a panel of representatives of six US government agencies: the departments of Commerce, Labour, Treasury and State, as well as the US Agency for International Development and the Office of the US Trade Representative.

The US president Donald Trump has vowed to oppose any trade initiative that he deems injurious to American interests. And Smart seeks to depict the EAC ban on used-clothing imports as a threat to thousands of US jobs.

Tanzania’s and Uganda have doubled levies on used-clothing imports — from $0.20 to $0.40 per kilogramme, while Rwanda has increased levies to USD2.5 from USD0.20.  These increases, the US secondhand clothing exporters say, go against the rules of the World Trade Organisation.

EAC countries’ countries dispute Smart’s contention that the used-clothing action violates two of Agoa’s eligibility criteria.

The 17-year-old programme requires participant countries to have achieved “elimination of barriers to US trade” or be making progress in that direction. Agoa also stipulates that benefit-recipient countries should be moving toward a “market-based economy.”

The EAC countries decided to adopt the used clothing import phase-out as a means of encouraging development of their own textile manufacturing sectors, said Uganda Trade Minister Amelia Kyambadde, who spoke in her capacity as chair of the EAC’s Council of Ministers.

“Industrialisation is a strategic pillar of EAC integration,” Ms Kyambadde said, adding that the heads of state decided that textiles and footwear manufacturing is a priority as growth of those sectors would create many more jobs in East Africa than will be lost through the shutdown of local businesses involved in the used-clothing trade.

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