Committee on trade industry and cooperative development chaired by Hon Adan Haji, Mp Mandera South has warned the executive that unless the Trade Remedies Act which was enacted 21st July 2017 and came into force 16th August 2017 is fully operationalized, the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), Trade deal between Kenya and UK will be thrown out by Mps on the floor of the house once the motion comes up for debate and ratification next week.
The purpose of the act is to provide for the establishment of Kenya Trade Remedies Agency to investigate and impose anti-dumping, countervailing and Trade safeguard measures necessary to monitor possible violations of EPA.
“The executive should not set up agencies if it cannot resource them adequately to carry out their mandate” said Mr Haji.
In the 2020/2021 financial year, the Trade Remedies Agency was allocated a paltry 33million barely enough to set up structures for the agency to function.
This comes after members of Parliament said that until they are fully aware of the details of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between Kenya and the United Kingdom , they will not ratify the agreement.
An earlier report tabled before the House last week did not have enough information containing the details of the type of goods that the UK will ship into the country duty free for 25 years.
Some of the annexures missing from the report include custom details of the goods coming from the UK, a joint statement of the parties that signed the agreement and the concept definition of terms of the products originating from the UK.
Last week on Thursday, the committee tabled its report on its consideration of the Economic Partnership Agreement, setting the stage open for debate by the House.
The committee’s chairman, Mr. Aden Haji, came up with annexures that was not contained in the earlier report, raising concerns among the lawmakers that something is not adding up and therefore the need to relook at the issue carefully
