It’s time for EAC to focus on production

Editor, REFER TO Collins Mwai’s article, “There is no shame in secondhand clothes” (Society Magazine, June 27). There is the other side to secondhand clothes, namely textiles, linen and footwear. This is the “Kilo-of-Cotton-T-shirt Debate”, which started in the early 90’s in Uganda, as part of explanation for Africa’s underdevelopment. Addressing us as students at Makerere University in 1991, President Yoweri Museveni argued, rightly, that part of “Africa’s Problem” was exchanging value for no-value, as well as exporting employment, innovation and skills. Giving the example of cotton, when we export a kilo of cotton, we earn one dollar (at the time). This same kilo of cotton will yield four T-shirts, each costing $12. Besides not affording it when it is new (only importing it when it is discarded), we employ people in the foreign country where we export the raw cotton. Along the value chain, people are employed in spinning, weaving, bleaching, and dyeing, designing, tailoring, transportation, wholesale, retail, and related services. And here we are, crying of unemployment and poverty. The EAC has the capacity to halt this strange situation by focusing on industrial zoning...what can we manufacture in which EAC country? Till the late 90s, Kenya had a vibrant textile sector, which slowly died due to imported “mitumba” and factory rejects. This partly explains the current unemployment in the region. The focus of the integration process has been more on “aids to trade” (roads, railways, laws, et al), with little attention on production. Yet trade is nothing but a function of production. The incessant NTBs in the region are simply an indicator that each country still strives to protect her turf in terms of market and jobs. We therefore need to rethink the integration process in the context of a zoned industrialisation strategy across the region, in terms of mega industries in key sectors spread across the EAC. If we take textiles to Kenya, for example, then all the cotton, silk and other fibres produced in the region go to Kenya; all hides and skins go to Tanzania; all grains and cereals go to Rwanda; all fruits and vegetables to Uganda; and all oils and pulses to Burundi. This is the basic primary industrialisation stage, called the Resource-Based Industrialisation. The next stages, Light Technology and Medium Technology Industrialisation, will be stimulated by the demand created at the RBI stage: enough disposable income from people employed in the RBI sectors. This will only be possible if our domestic market is not flooded by secondhand. Kahunga Matsiko, Rwanda

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It’s time for EAC to focus on production