Consumer Protection Activists HAD for longer than a decade pushed and even drafted the Consumer Protection Law that had never seen the light of day. Yet a lifeline for such a law came in the Regional Integration Implementation Project based on EAC and COMESA Frameworks. But the passing of this law and the competition law would have to wait through the government bureaucracy first. “We started with the policy which we drafted and it was passed by the Cabinet. We moved on and came up with a Bill. First, before the Bill, we had to come up with principles which we took to the Cabinet they were also adopted. Now, these principles are having a Competition Law in Uganda and also having a Consumer Protection Law in Uganda. We’ve reached almost the final stages with this Bill, it is now before the first Parliamentary Council.” Said, Stephen Kamukama, Project Manager Regional Implementation.

“Most of the time as the government we negotiate, we come up with preferential schemes, an environment that should be conducive to the Private Sector to be able to export.” But the Private Sector may not know of these opportunities yet other country’s Private Sectors export here. A case in point which Uganda was missing was the airspace liberalization. “You have at the moment when the Airline say Kenya Airways comes from Kenya to Uganda, they can only go back if they pick passengers from Uganda. They can only go back to Kenya first take the passengers to Kenya. They cannot take from Uganda to South Sudan or to Switzerland. Now it was agreed that countries negotiate with each other and see how they can liberalize some of that.” And Uganda opened up for Rwanda and Ethiopia Airlines.