A boy put his hand into a pitcher full of filberts. He grasped as many as he could possibly hold, but when he tried to pull out his hand, he was prevented from doing so by the neck of the pitcher.
Unwilling to lose his filberts, and yet unable to withdraw his hand, he burst into tears and bitterly lamented his disappointment. A bystander said to him, “Be satisfied with half the quantity, and you will readily draw out your hand.”
Last week, the whole nation was up in arms when Trade Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria stated that mitumba would be banned if an alternative could be found. I get it, the mitumba industry is a hot-button topic but before we involve emotions in logic, let’s analyse the issue critically.
We have become a nation that relies predominantly on clothes manufactured in other countries. Local manufacturing is shunned and local designers are barely able to build a brand because of a lack of market.
If you look at the EPZ, international manufacturers make clothes in Kenya to sell elsewhere. This means that we can build the skills, capacity and market to stitch and sell from Kenya.
Additionally, businesses along the value chain, from cotton farmers to young fashion designers, would benefit from the sudden demand from Kenyans looking for local products.
In the 1980s, the Kenyan textile industry was the second largest employer after the public service but the same cannot be said today. The many textile firms in the country would employ more than 500,000 people at any given time.
Kisumu Cotton Mills (Kicomi), Rift Valley Textiles (Rivatex), Raymond and Thika Cloth Mills were household names that we never speak of today. In fact, the younger generation does not know that a Raymond blanket was a perfect gift during the cold and rainy season.
In the mid-1990s, second-hand clothes imports flooded the market and spelt doom for the textile industry. Soon, we started importing raw materials for clothing as the many textile companies started closing or scaling down.
As a result, many Kenyans lost their jobs and their livelihoods as the economy suffered due to the cheap imports. Years later, we are yet to recover from what now appears to have been a poor decision of allowing mitumba into the country.
The previous administration had targeted the creation of at least 10,000 jobs in apparel, 500,000 in the cotton sector and increased exports by Sh20.49 billion. It is important that this plan is realised because it can save the country from its economic struggles.
A report by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics in 2021 showed the mitumba sector employs approximately two million people, from the total of 20.6 million in the Kenyan labour force.
However, the contribution from this sector to the economy cannot be compared to what Kenya can make from the formal textile industry. We need to capitalise on this and ensure that Kenya benefits from the textile industry, makes more money and creates more jobs.
The US is the largest export destination of Kenya’s apparel, accounting for over 90 per cent of garment exports every year. Of the $667 million US imports from Kenya, nearly 70 per cent ($453 million) was apparel, making the sector the single largest stakeholder in the proposed Free Trade Agreement.
We should therefore as a country support the initiatives proposed by Moses Kuria as a way of ensuring that we get things done in a way that will be beneficial to the country.
Kenya needs to rediscover its prowess as a manufacturing hub in the region and this is the time to do it. In addition, the country needs to revive its economy and we cannot do it with our traditional large contributors to GDP such as agriculture.
If we do not support a ban on mitumba, we will continue to kill our textile industry and end up not making enough money for what Kenyans need. The time is now to ban mitumba and make the world buy original Kenyan textiles.
