Traders at Gikomba market in Nairobi (file). Photo: Yganyana via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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Ruto slashes customs benchmark after Nairobi traders protest.
President William Ruto has cut a disputed customs benchmark after weeks of protest by small traders in Nairobi's Kamukunji, Gikomba and Nyamakima markets.
Traders shut their businesses and clashed with police on August 28 after the Kenya Revenue Authority raised the minimum value used to calculate duty on consolidated cargo. Ruto met traders and other stakeholders at State House on September 2 and agreed to lower the benchmark for a 40-foot container from Sh3.2 million to Sh2 million.
Kenya Railways also cut its transport charge for de-consolidated cargo from Sh58,000 to Sh10,000, and the government dropped a requirement for advance cargo declarations that traders said was slowing clearance at the port.
More changes ahead
Ruto directed the KRA Commissioner General to draw up and publish a list of high-value goods that will be excluded from the lower benchmark, and ordered new de-consolidation centres to be set up in Nairobi and Mombasa to ease congestion.
The concessions come as Kenya's private-sector activity contracted in August for the first time in three months, with traders warning that higher import costs were being passed on to shoppers in Nairobi's markets.
This story was put together by K N N from material first published by People Daily.
That was a Kibra News Network report, read by an A I voice.
President William Ruto has cut a disputed customs benchmark after weeks of protest by small traders in Nairobi’s Kamukunji, Gikomba and Nyamakima markets.
Traders shut their businesses and clashed with police on August 28 after the Kenya Revenue Authority raised the minimum value used to calculate duty on consolidated cargo. Ruto met traders and other stakeholders at State House on September 2 and agreed to lower the benchmark for a 40-foot container from Sh3.2 million to Sh2 million.
Kenya Railways also cut its transport charge for de-consolidated cargo from Sh58,000 to Sh10,000, and the government dropped a requirement for advance cargo declarations that traders said was slowing clearance at the port.
More changes ahead
Ruto directed the KRA Commissioner General to draw up and publish a list of high-value goods that will be excluded from the lower benchmark, and ordered new de-consolidation centres to be set up in Nairobi and Mombasa to ease congestion.
The concessions come as Kenya’s private-sector activity contracted in August for the first time in three months, with traders warning that higher import costs were being passed on to shoppers in Nairobi’s markets.
KNN Newsroom is the staff byline for stories written, rewritten and edited at the Kibra News Network desk. Where a story credits an outside outlet, the original source is linked at the foot of the piece.
