Second-hand cloth sellers feel the pinch of Covid-19 lockdown

Second-hand cloth dealers in Owino Market have painfully waited for the Covid-19 lockdown to end.
On Tuesday and Wednesday last week, 50-year-old Rebecca Ddumba walked for two hours from her home in Ndejje on Entebbe Road near Busabala to check on her stock of second-hand clothes that she had carefully tacked in a small locker at her stall.

“I could no longer stay home. The President talks about other businesses but nothing is being said about us. I have been surviving on money that my son-in-law sends me for food, but I cannot be waiting or begging for food from my children yet I have a business that can sustain me,” Ms Ddumba said.

In 2006, Ms Ddumba, guided by a friend, walked into Owino Market with Shs500,000. For her, everything she owns in life is attributed to her business. She has been able to educate her two children who have also ventured into second-hand cloth business.

But now she has two burdens that give her sleepless nights. Her 79-year-old mother is under her care at her home and a loan whose repayment period has elapsed.

“Poverty is not good. If you are home and you have loans, you cannot settle. These people of Pride Microfinance can take away anything from you until they recover their money. I borrowed Shs2 million before the lockdown. The stock is still here. My elderly mother needs care. Where do I get the money?” says Ms Ddumba.

On Wednesday, she joined a few other vendors to spread their clothes in the sun. The rain had for the two months of the lockdown made the clothes damb.

For a mother who has known business as her only source of livelihood, life seems to have suddenly come to a standstill. She hopes the government will reopen their business soon so that she continues to take care of her family.

For others with extended families, the lockdown has been a nightmare. Mr Noah Ssalongo Mukasa says fending for his family of six is becoming impossible.

Most of the bed covers, bedsheets and curtains that he sells come from the United Kingdom, Canada or Australia. However, such economies have been hit by coronavirus. Uganda also banned importation of second-hand clothes last month as more countries around the world reported more Covid-19 cases.
In April, Uganda National Bureau of Standards, however, back tracked its position on implementing the ban.

When Daily Monitor visited Mr Ssalongo Mukasa at Owino Market, he looked frail and pale. He neither smiled nor joked after a warm greeting.

Since 1997 when he dropped out of school in Senior Three, Mukasa has known vending second-hand clothes as his only source of livelihood. Having started with a small capital of Sh250, 000, he had grown and was able to pay fees for his children and feed his family. One of his daughters is a nurse at Rakai Health Centre in Makasa District.

Mukasa came to Owino after a friend helped him out. His second-hand cloth business has supported his family. But as a result of the lockdown, his faith in the business has been dampened.

For a man who feared loans because of the way he sees others being harassed during repayment, Mukasa is considering the risk.

“I do not have even a single coin left now. My family does not have food. Poverty is bad. It is so painful. I might for the first time take a loan depending on what they ask for as security,” says Mukasa.

The wrinkles in his face show frustration. A withdrawn character. “Whenever it rains, water get into our clothes and they are damaged. Government should allow us to operate so that we sell the few good ones left,” he says.

Mukasa says before the lockdown, he would sell a bale of his bed covers, bed sheets or curtains within two to three days. He says business was good despite the high taxes and other expences like rent.

A bale of second-hand clothes before the lockdown cost between Shs350,000 and Shs700, 000.
Away from the market in the Suburbs of Kampala in Lugala, 32-year-old Fuad Nadia ventured into online marketing of clothes from Wandegeya.

It did not pick up the way she had hoped. As a high school student, Nadia had a passion for selling clothes. She would save her pocket money, run to Owino Market and choose a few nice clothes that she would sell to her friends at school.
After completing her Diploma in Tourism from Career Institute on Entebbe Road, Nadia continued vending clothes. She grew and opened Nadia Fashions boutique but costs of operation like rent of Shs2.7 million per month pushed her out of business.

Before the lockdown, she was maintaining her online shop by posting about 120 to 180 designs on social media every Saturday. Some of her clients were top socialites in Uganda and Kenya. Her clients wanted the product delivered at their door steps or offices.

Going online fulltime and closing her Wandegeya shop is an option she is considering. Nadia employs her sister and brother who she pays to help her with arranging for pickups or sending clothes to her clients.

“That blue dress was supposed to go to a client in Kenya. She ordered it the same day the lockdown was imposed. I used to send to those in Kenya by bus,” she says while sorting dresses in her sitting room.

Nadia is running out of stock and worries that if Owino does not open, she will run out of business and lose her clients.

“My other challenge is that there are people who owe me and have not been able to pay. I have about Shs25 million out with clients,” Nadia says.
Whereas she understands the difficulties people are undergoing, she is worried of her business.

Faith Lumonya, the programme officer with Southern Eastern African Trade, Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI) Uganda, says it remains unclear how government will help out such people.

“It is not clear what government support will be extended to the retailers in second-hand clothes. Wiping out the clothes needs clear defined alternatives,” she says.

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