Give us interest-free loans, scrap metal dealers tell Ruto

Scrap metal dealers have asked President William Ruto to create a fund from which they can access interest-free loans.

The traders on Tuesday said most dealers in the business cannot access loans from banks because they are reluctant to extend credit to them.

Malaba Scrap Metal Dealers Association chairman Stephen Owino told the Star their woes increased when the government banned scrap metal business to stop vandalism.

“This sector has been neglected for long. When we go to banks, we are not given loans. We are appealing to the incoming President to support our hustles because he promised to support small-scale traders like us in order to create employment,” Owino said.

“Let the fifth President not forget us when he gets to State House because all of us are his supporters. During campaigns, he used to come to Malaba. Let him move across the country the way he used to move during campaigns.”

Ruto, ahead of the August 9 General Election, unveiled an ambitious manifesto that allocated billions to small business people.

The Kenya Kwanza manifesto said that Kenya’s economic turnaround lay in radical reforms in agriculture and small businesses.

The scrap metal dealers spoke after the government lifted the ban on the scrap metal business.

The ban was instituted in January to end the rising cases of vandalism of key public installations.

Uhuru had said the moratorium would stay in place until the government put in place adequate measures to effectively police the sourcing, trade and export of scrap metal.

The ban was, however, partially lifted in April after the government announced that it would gradually suspend the ban on scrap metal dealings starting May 1.

Industrialisation Cabinet Secretary Betty Maina said trading in scrap metal would be confined to only those who are duly licensed.

Undertaking scrap metal trade without a licence, she said, would cost a fine of Sh10 million for first offenders and up to five years imprisonment for second-time offenders.

In the new rules developed by the ministry of industrialisation, licensed scrap dealers will be paid Sh250,000 for over 5,000 kilogrammes of metal.

Owino said the government should also step in and protect traders dealing in scrap metal trade from exploitation.

“Sometime because of domestic shortages in scrap metal, we acquire the material from Uganda. The material that comes from Uganda is expensive and that has affected our income. That is why we are appealing to the president to intervene and help us,” Owino said.

He said traders importing the scrap metal from Uganda have to pay taxes at the border. This, he said, pushes up the cost of their products.

With expensive products, they generate low revenue, Owino said.

During the lifting of the ban, Uhuru reminded the police to execute their constitutional mandate of safeguarding the wellbeing of Kenyans and their property without “fear, favour or intimidation from any quarters”.

Some of the materials targeted by vandals, according to Uhuru, included road barriers, guardrails, utility infrastructure, conductors, cables, copper wife, railway gauge blocks and rails, transformers and other materials.