Last week President Museveni paid a state visit to Kenya on
the invitation of his counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta.
It made sense that Museveni would overfly the capital
Nairobi to start the visit in the Mombasa, the de facto gate way to the region.
According to port authorities in 2017 Uganda accounted for almost a quarter of
all trade through the port. Seven million tons out of a total of 30.35 tons of
cargo that pass through Mombasa were registered to Uganda.
Museveni eventually went to Nairobi, riding on the Standard
Gauge Railway (SGR) first leg.
During the visit a series of agreements to allow greater
access of Ugandan – sugar, dairy and poultry products and Kenyan goods – beef
in the respective countries were signed off. The intention to lease
Uganda land
to build a dry port in Naivasha, one of the terminal’s of the SGR was also
announced.
"Before Tanzania came under British mandate after the First World War it was just present day Kenya and Uganda, stitched together by the Uganda Railway, which had landed in Kisumu in 1901. A steamer service led to the construction of an 11 km line from Port Bell to Kampala. The line via Malaba to Kampala was completed in 1931.
The real core of the east African community is Uganda and
Kenya, where the trade figures between the two countries is concrete evidence
of their symbiosis.
In 2017 trade between the two countries stood at more than a
billion dollars. A similar figure for trade between Kenya and Tanzania is about
$500m.
It is clear that our relation is not based on
sentimentality. Even during the 1970s when diplomatic relations were at their
lowest, trade continue along the common border and over Lake Victoria, that
once relations normalized was easily reformalised in the 1980s.
If there is one country that has provided sustainable
economic benefit to Uganda it has to be Kenya. Their demand for food alone is
slowly transforming our agriculture from the limbo of subsistence it has been
stuck in to more commercial enterprise.
We have had a few moments of madness in the past.
In 1976 Idi Amin decided it might be a good idea to revisit
an old map of the region which had the Ugandan border starting at the Kenyan Rift
Valley. Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta – father
of the current president, massed his troops on our common border and swore,
“Wacha ajaribu, atatutambua!” (Let him try and he will find out who we are).
A second time was at the end of 1987 when there was shoot
out at the Busia border, that led to a border shut down for a few weeks. Both
countries traded accusations with Uganda accusing Kenya of habouring
anti-government rebels and Kenya claiming its neighbours troops had crossed
onto their side.
Speculation mostly unproven, was that Kenyan commercial
interests were unimpressed about noises from Kampala pushing for a
resuscitation of our industrial capacity so as to wean ourselves away from
Kenya’s manufacturers. Kisumu’s industry built up during the 1970s was targeted
at supplying Uganda.
In both instances sanity prevailed quickly because there
were real economic interests at stake beyond brotherly love.
"It has been proven time and time again, that trade relations are the more sustainable glue that holds communities together and prevent wars...
The Europeans put a stop to centuries of fratricidal
conflict after the second world war, with the creation of the European Coal and
Steel Community, the precursor to the current European Union, which has allowed
the free movement of goods, service and people.
This has had the effect of creating specialisations, with
countries doing away with what they cannot produce competitively, choosing to
import what they don’t produce and export their surpluses. This interdependence
means war or even diplomatic rows have little fuel to sustain them.
The opening up of our markets will come with some short term
pain as some industries are outcompeted by more efficient ones across the
border, as is already happening. But as suggested above it will sharpen our
businessmen’s sense of what they can produce competitively, so that they
specialize, scale up their operations and gear up to supply our neighbour’s
$75b economy’s needs.
There are those who will argue that our industries will need
protection as they are still in their infancy, they will say that is how
industries elsewhere survived. What they do not talk about is the opportunity
cost in effort, resources – human and financial, that will be expended in
ensuring that these uncompetitive industries stay afloat.
"If there are public funds to be spent they will be best employed helping uncompetitive companies retool or wind up, than subsidizing them to stay afloat, because as we have discovered they can’t seem to wean themselves off the subsidies once they have started to enjoy them...
The people of the two countries will be the eventual winners
working for competitive sustainable companies and enjoying better goods and
service in return.
