Kampala traders welcome anti-counterfeit goods bill withdraw

Traders under Kampala City Traders Association (KACITA) umbrella have welcomed the Cab­i­net’s move to have anti-coun­ter­feit­ing goods Bill withdrawn from Par­lia­ment.

Speaking to this Website, the association Chairman Everest Kayondo said that traders already had issues with the bill especially fines and penalties.

According to the Cabinet, there are other laws in the constitution that can ad­dress the gap on counterfeit goods thus resolving to have the bill curtailed.

The Bill was in­tro­duced in 2015 with the aim of com­bat­ing the im­por­ta­tion and sale of coun­ter­feit prod­ucts on the Ugan­dan do­mes­tic mar­ket.

This same bill has been ready for sec­ond read­ing for two years with the min­istry of trade of­ten ask­ing for more time to seek a com­mon cab­i­net
po­si­tion.

It should be noted on Tuesday af­ter­noon, the Min­is­ter of state for Trade Michael Werikhe has told Par­liament to for­get the Bill.

Mr Werikhe also told Par­lia­ment that the min­istry has sub­mit­ted a guid­ing doc­u­ment to cab­i­net on how the ex­ist­ing laws will be re­viewed to cater for the pri­mary ob­jec­tives of the Bill.

The re­port from the Par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee on Trade, Tourism and In­dus­try rec­om­mended in 2016 that the Bill be with­drawn, cit­ing sim­i­lar grounds.

Ob­ject of the Bill
The pro­posed bill seeks to pro­hibit trade in coun­ter­feit goods that in­fringe upon pro­tected in­tel­lec­tual prop­erty rights; to re­quire in­tel­lec­tual prop­erty rights to cover only copy­right and trade­marks and to pro­hibit re­lease of coun­ter­feit goods into the chan­nels of com­merce.

It also seeks to cre­ate of­fences re­lat­ing to trade in coun­ter­feit goods, em­power the Com­mis­sioner Gen­eral to seize and de­tain sus­pected coun­ter­feit goods, al­low in­spec­tors ap­pointed by the Uganda Na­tional Bu­reau of Stan­dards to seize and de­tain sus­pected coun­ter­feit goods and to pro­vide for in­ci­den­tal (re­lated) mat­ters.