Businessman decries of empty promises from  president’s office over 200m capital loss

Amos Tayebwa

Mbarara

Mbarara based Businessman Friday Wilson has again decried over empty promises from some of the presidential offices that have not fully followed up his concern. He has therefore requested President  Museven to intervene into his issues and contribute towards his loss of 200m caused by UNBS.

Wilson who is a merchandise trader in Mbarara City dealing in textile items is calling for government to help him recover his lost capital and merchandise.  This comes after his textile items including bed covers, mosquito nets and bed sheets which he had imported from China were confiscated by Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) suspecting them to be substandard.

Wilson went to China in January 2018, he imported a number of mosquito nets, bed sheets, bed covers and Insecticides from a Chinese manufacturing company  situated in Yiwu city, on reaching Kampala in April he realized the date of manufacture of the items was not matching, this attracted  UNBS to suspect the merchandise of being substandard.

“In 2018 January, I went to china,  I imported a number of different items that include mosquito nets and insecticides called cockroach powder, bed covers, and bedsheets, on reaching Kampala I was told the date of manufacture was not matching. Because it showed that insecticides were manufactured in July yet things arrived in April, UNBS suspected the things to be substandard but me who had bought them had never imported substandard merchandise. I went to china myself, made orders and the Chinese man who manufactured mosquito nets forgot to attach a seal paper showing size and number of nets inside such as percentage of cotton”,  said Wilson

Speaking to our reporter, Wilson Like any businessman, he says he was much affected because he used loans most of the time and that he made a great loss since his merchandise was confiscated.

After this incident, Wilson opted to write to the president seeking  for support. He wrote a letter to the president in 2020 asking for his intervention and support  towards the loss he incurred.

“On 14th Jan 2020, I wrote a letter and sent it to the president, the letter reached him during Covid-19 times. The president’s secretary Keneth Umona on 20th June 2020 wrote a reply to me assuring me the letter was delivered to the president and that they would tell me what the president decides on the issue. In the letter I had requested President Museveni to support me and I get back to my business” he said.

Wilson believes that he has been paying a lot of various taxes to this government but this time he’s stuck and he has not been helped.

Wilson adds that he had never experienced such a challenge in all the 10 years he had spent in the business, according to him, he made a loss of over shs 200m in the process.

“You know when you go abroad for shopping you experience  a lot of expenditure on air ticket, accommodation, transport and shipping, so including this process I ended up losing  over shs200m including the prices of the items that were destroyed” He added

He says he should be supported and given back items since trading merchandise was his only source of income.

Wilson has been a key mobilizer of NRM for the decades. He says that he has financially supported NRM especially in the days of election. That its very unfortunate that he has been neglected during these tough days.

According to UNBS’ letter signed by the executive director Ben Manyindo, he says that businessman was advised to reexport the nonconforming mosquito nets back to the country of origin or have them destroyed at his cost.

However, Wilson says himself is not against UNBS because may be they were doing their role as an authority. He further noted that also  it was not his fault  instead it was the other chines company’s fault that mistaken.

Recently on 16TH Aug 2022, the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) launched a new board to constitute the national standards council to curb the prevalence of counterfeit products in the country. The UNBS annual report 2020/2021 states that products worth more than Shs 200m were destroyed because they did not conform to the standards