Create basic capacity for textile industry before ‘mitumba’ ban

Muthurwa’s ‘mitumba’ market in Nairobi. Kenya should not rush to phase out used clothes without affordable alternatives. PHOTO | SAMMY KIMATU 

By GEORGE WACHIRA

In Summary

• Kenya should make sufficient preparations for affordable alternatives.

Earlier this month the East African Community (EAC) summit endorsed plans by member countries to ban imports of second hand clothing, commonly referred to as mitumba.

This is a well- intentioned and long-overdue regional policy to promote and protect local textile manufacturing. If effectively implemented, the policy should also rejuvenate the agricultural sector (cotton and wool).

However, rushing to penalise mitumba trade before the basic capacity like local raw materials are in place may be inadvisable.

The used clothes should be phased out gradually through incremental tax raises to allow a truly value adding textile manufacturing model to be developed.

A textile industrialisation programme that merely lines up foreign investors to bring in capital, import raw materials and repatriate profits is a feeble one. This may actually result in minimal job gains and fail to produce reasonably priced clothes.

The new investors should fit in a “locally biased” textile plan that participates in development of local raw materials; supports SMEs; seeks local equity partnerships; and facilitates local shareholding through NSE.

The mitumba trade has a long history. It has evolved by default because a flourishing textile industry that existed in Kenya was allowed to collapse without replacing it with affordable alternatives.

Numerous textile mills at Thika, Eldoret, Kisumu, Nanyuki and Nairobi closed down in the 1990s when economic liberalisation, pushed by the Breton Woods institutions, permitted competing imports to enter the market.

Further, when the textile factories closed down, the agricultural sectors that used to supply them with cotton and wool also collapsed and these negatively impacted rural economies with many jobs lost. It was a double hit as factory and agricultural jobs were lost.

All this was happening at a time when our economy was in limbo, with a high incidence of poverty. To help clothe the very poor who could not afford imported clothing, foreign charity and church organisations started dispatching duty-free second hand clothes to Kenya.

Within a short time, and due to a genuinely high demand, this activity morphed into a lucrative mitumba trade which acquired sophistication as time passed.

As I drove past Karatina town last weekend , I noticed a large bustling open-air mitumba market which I estimated could be directly employing several hundred vendors

If one extrapolates this scene across all towns of Kenya , one will acknowledge that the second hand clothing sector is today a major employer of thousands of citizens.

One will also not fail to notice that these days Kenyans are generally beautifully and smartly dressed, and they feel good about it. This goodness has a social value that cannot be easily discounted.

The second hand wear contributes a huge share of this satisfaction because the clothes are mostly affordable by many Kenyan households.

The socio-economic implications associated with mitumba suggest that rushing to ban them without sufficient preparations for affordable alternatives will result in unintended consequences.

Further, such actions may not be politically astute for a government going into elections. It is at the beginning of a new government term that socially sensitive policies are implemented.

The textile industry value chain should maximise on locally sourced raw materials to increase grassroots participation and jobs.

Increased cotton outputs from agriculture will need to be fast-tracked. Feasibility for reviving wool farming in the Rift Valley and elsewhere may be necessary.

Silk farming can be a novel agricultural sub-sector especially for the small scale farmers. These local raw materials should be a critical pillar for textile industrialisation.

Kenya already has a number of struggling textile factories which should be assisted to boost capacity and fit into the new textile industrialization plan. We also have a successful EPZ textile manufacturing sector.

Can the EPZ policies and regulations be modified to leverage on their existing capacity to mass produce clothing to meet much of the local demands currently under the second hand sector?

Wool farming

It should also be noted that once local capacity for fabrics manufacturing is in place, it is the SME fashion stores that shall turn most of the fabrics into various designs meeting personal tastes.

The SMEs should therefore be made an integral part of the textiles value chain, for this is an effective way of spreading out jobs out of the big towns.

The EAC policy to ban mitumba is only one aspect of numerous challenges and opportunities touching on textile industrialisation. All relevant aspects should be addressed simultaneously for effectiveness and completeness.

I must however express my optimism with the proposed leather and footwear industrialisation where consultations and participation appear to be wider.

The fact that the focus and driving strategy is on value addition of local hides and skins is a correct starting point.

There are also ongoing efforts to create institutions and infrastructure to support an effective leather industry. In principle, the leather industry appears to be better prepared and more coherent to take a leap into industrialisation than the textiles counterparts.

Wachira works at Petroleum Focus Consultants. Wachira@petroleumfocus.com