On March 25, the government suspended importation of mitumba as a Covid-19 prevention measure, which to be honest was a flimsy ground because there are health safety guidelines that can be enforced during the handling of imports. Kenya simply used the Covid-19 pandemic to impose the ban on mitumba, a policy it has previously attempted to implement many times but failed.
Then last week, an article calling for a total ban on mitumba imports was published in this newspaper. From that frame, the conflict of interest in that proposal was more than visible. It has become fanciful for self-preserving local industry players to simply argue for an importation ban to boost local production.
