By Kabuye Ronald
City businesswoman dealing in Agro-Chemicals has been charged for alleged counterfeiting of a trade mark to sell substandard products.
Evlyn Kunahimbire, 35, a resident of Matugga was arraigned before the Magistrates Court at Buganda Road and denied the offences of forging trade mark, selling of goods with false marks, false applying of a registered trade mark and sell of substandard agro-chemicals to farmers.
However, the Grade One Magistrate Marion Mangeni granted Kunehimbire a cash bail of Shs1 million.
The magistrate adjourned the matter to September 20 for mention since investigations into the matter is still ongoing
Kunehimbire was arrested during an operation carried out by the Anti-Counterfeit Network Africa (ACN) in partnership with Bukoola Chemical Industries Ltd (BCIL) to crackdown on the illicit trade.
The operation is part of the campaign of a 90 days’ communication strategy to create awareness of the genuine agro-products on the market and an enforcement action against counterfeit perpetrators involved in the illicit trade, aimed at combating counterfeiting Bukoola products on the market, and boost consumption of genuine inputs.
Fred Muwema, the legal director for Anti-Counterfeit Network said that presenting Ms Kunehimbire in court is a follow up of the legal action and on the raid that was carried out to apprehend counterfeiters of Bukoola Chemical Industries Ltd Products like pesticides, herbicides and fungicides.
Muwema urged farmers to be vigilant against supply of fake agro-inputs thus appealing to them to only access genuine products from gazetted distribution points across the country.
It should be noted that,Uganda’s Agriculture sector contributes up to 30% of the total GDP, over 70% of Uganda’s exports, and its considered as one of the priority sectors for future economic growth and economic inclusion by the Uganda National Development Plan.
Despite the good National Development Plan, the sector growth rate of 2% is way below the average NDP growth of 6%. Which is partly blamed on the increasing supply of counterfeits and substandard agro-inputs which have negatively affected the agricultural sector and the economy at large.
It is estimated that farmers in Uganda lose up to USD 7M to fake seeds alone, USD18M on fake herbicides, and USD 2M on fake fertilizers annually.
It is also estimated that the prevalence of counterfeit farm in-puts on the market is over 50% hence a compelling explanation for loss of trust by farmers, and low adoption of agricultural technologies in the Ugandan context which is less than 20%.
