Members of Parliament behind the proposed Anti-Counterfeit Goods Bill, 2023, are set for public consultations ahead of tabling the legislation in Parliament.
Bugiri Municipality MP Asuman Basalirwa is the mover of the Private Member’s Bill, which is seconded among others by Soroti West Division MP Jonathan Ebwalu.
The duo say the Bill if passed into law, will combat the economic drain and protect legitimate businesses. They also say the process will be supported by the Anti-Counterfeit Network (ACN) and venerated partners.
According to Basalirwa, public consultations are crucial in gathering views from various stakeholders to ensure that the legislative process is inclusive and leads to effective legislation to combat counterfeits. The consultations will be carried out for three months beginning April 2024 and will take place at selected locations in the Central, Eastern, Northern, and Western regions of Uganda.
Since we were granted leave, we have been able to panel-beat the draft of the bill. I can now confirm that we are ready to proceed to the House because we have fully worked on the bill, and it is here with us. Now, the second phase will further enrich this bill. These have been our views at the level of movers and seconders, but also at the level of the technical team; we now want to engage another key element in this entire process – the stakeholders. We will begin having public consultations as far as this Bill is concerned, said Basalirwa.
Currently, we are facing an economic squeeze, but this squeeze is being compounded by counterfeits, which are destroying all productive sectors of the economy and driving youth unemployment to unbearable levels. We need the ACGB 2023 to address this negative trend with punitive sanctions against the culprits, he added
Ebwalu decried the menace of counterfeits, which continue to afflict the people of Uganda irrespective of their political inclination, gender, tribe or social standing. He said the proposed Bill is a nonpartisan people’s law that should unite and heal the wounds of the political divide.
This is a very important piece of legislation, it is going to protect our children and great-grandchildren. Counterfeit products are everywhere. Unfortunately, counterfeit products potentially cause the biggest risks to consumers because these counterfeits don’t have specifications, said Ebwalu.
The MPs have drawn support from city lawyer Fred Muwema, a long-standing activist against counterfeits and Chairman of the ACN in Uganda. He welcomed the enactment of the Bill, describing the move as a timely intervention against counterfeits which has been in the waiting for more than 10 years.
The East African Business Council reports that East African states lose more than $500 million every year because of standards, and for us here, our estimate is a third of our national budget is wasted on counterfeits and sub-standards goods that are anywhere near UGX 6 trillion to UGX 10 trillion is lost to counterfeits. This is because every sector of the economy is affected. Globally, about 3 per cent of world trade is counterfeit and substandard. The United States Customs says counterfeits are growing at a rate of 1100 per cent every 10 years, and that means they are growing at a rate of 101 per cent every year, said Muwema.
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