Dairy traders want ban on milk vending in city lifted
A trader draws milk from a bucket. Milk traders want court to overturn a ban prohibiting them to sell unpacked milk. FILE PHOTO
What you need to know:
Not safe. Group says even packed milk can be adulterated
Kampala.
Dairy traders under their umbrella association, Uganda National Dairy Traders Association Ltd, have petitioned court to quash a ban that prohibits them from vending unlabelled or unpacked milk in the city and 21 municipalities across the country.
In their suit filed before the High Court on Friday last week, the traders sued the Attorney General and the Dairy Development Authority.
“An order to call for the quash of regulation 3 (b) of the Dairy (Marketing and Processing of Milk and Milk Products) regulations, statutory instrument No. 17 of 2015 which purports to ban the marketing and vending of unpacked or unlabelled milk in the cities and municipalities,” the suit by the dairy traders reads in part.
The suit further reads: “An order of prohibition barring the respondents (Attorney General and Uganda National Dairy Traders Association Ltd), their servants or agents and any other person from enforcing the impugned regulation...”
In the complaint, the milk traders state that sometime in June this year, the Dairy Development Authority invited a few of their members to a meeting at Fairway Hotel in Kampala and informed them about the looming ban of vending unlabelled milk.
The milk traders go on to lament that the ban is on the face of it, vague and unjustifiable as it forbids the marketing and vending of raw milk or pasteurized milk in cities and municipalities which is their mainstay, yet there is no compelling reason for unfair discrimination of this kind.
“The ban is therefore a damning indictment of the applicant’s members who are vendors of raw, pasteurized or unprocessed milk in Kampala city and 21 municipalities for the time being yet none of them was given a fair hearing,” reads the traders’ suit.
support for traders
In his sworn-in affidavit to support the suit, Mr Khalid Matovu, the executive secretary of the association, said packaging or labelling of the milk per se, does not guarantee safe and good quality milk for human consumption and that branded milk can also be adulterated.
He added that before this ban was effected, it was not unlawful to market or vend unpacked milk in the municipalities or city provided it was safe and handled in conformity with the standards set by the supervising organs.
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