Uganda has threatened to boot out foreigners involved in small scale business arguing that this market was meant for locals only.
Map of Uganda
The East African nation claims that foreigners, particularly Somalis and Asians, moved to Uganda claiming they were large investors, yet they moved into "petty trade" depriving locals.
This has seen several illegal immigrants going into hiding following the government's decision to arrest and deport them.
The Foreign nationals are reportedly avoiding being seen in public after an official from the Ministry of Trade, Levi Adra said Ugandan traders had complained that they were losing business to illegal immigrants.
Adra said the government had since banned illegal immigrants from being involved in small scale business activities.
"We have banned foreign investors from operating small businesses. We got a lot of complaints from Ugandan traders over immigrants," said Adra.
Apart from their involvement in petty businesses, the official said, some illegal immigrants, like Somalis, posed a security threat to the country and that an order had been issued to identify them and deport them back to their countries of origin.
On Tuesday the country's Internal Affairs Minister, Hillary Onek met with Indian entrepreneurs in Kampala to discuss the issue of Indian investors who are engaged in petty trade in Uganda.
"Investors engaged in small scale economic activities should stop or have their investment licenses cancelled" Onek cautioned. "We give licenses to foreign investors so that they invest in honest manner. We do not give them licenses to deal in petty items."
Onek also warned that investors from India should only get involved in reasonably big businesses and desist from "making buns and pan-cakes".
A representation of Ugandan traders, Kampala City Traders Association (KACITA) said they have often complained about foreigners, mostly from China and India, initially coming to Uganda as investors but end up in petty trade.
"Some fake investors cause unemployment" KACITA spokesman, Isah sekitto said, while suggesting that this was because of their ability to undercut locals with bigger capital in what should be reserved for "locals with smaller capital"
William Nsaddha, a local representative of Iganga town, some 120 kilometres east of Kampala claims that "many Indians and Chinese came to our town and opened up small shops selling items at low prices forcing local businessmen out of business".
Meanwhile, India's High Commissioner to Uganda, Soumen Ray, has expressed doubts over whether there were Indian investors involved in small economic activities in the East African country.
According to Ray, Indians coming to Uganda as investors come with no less than 10,000 US dollars to invest.
Source: The Africa Report
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