Unauthorised traders’ licences to be revoked

Traders’ plea. Traders want KCCA to give them more time to comply.

Traders have just a few days to pay up their licence fees or risk having them revoked.
Effective February 1, 2013, all business which will not have adhered to the January 31, deadline will see their businesses closed by Kampala City Council Authority.

However, traders want KCCA to give them more time to comply.
“Most of our members are cash-strapped and should be given more time to clear their trading licences,” Mr Everest Kayondo, Chairman Kampala City Traders Association (Kacita), said.

Traders are also requesting government through the trade ministry to change the system of paying trading licences to 12 months. This will work in such a way that if a trader starts a business in the middle of the year, his/her licence should expire in the next year around the sometime.
By law, they should have paid up by January 31, but KCCA extended the deadline to January 31 2013.

Reacting to the traders’ plea for KCCA to respect the 12-month system for businesses which open up in the middle of the year, Mr Peter Kaujju, the KCCA spokesperson, quashed the traders’ preferred system.
“That does not work. Traders have to respect the prevailing law. Those who opened up businesses in the middle of the year have to pay the licence fee.”

Mr Kaujju, however, said there were impressive signs of compliance by the traders in general.

Responding to the traders’ plea, the ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives consulted various stake holders and reviewed trade licence rates stipulated in statutory instrument No. 2 of 2011 of the KCCA trading license act.

dnakaweesi@ug.nationmedia.com