Uganda in underwear crisis

Millions of Ugandans have lost their dignity and are going ‘commando’. The underwear crisis is acute in both genders with women being the most affected.
The findings of this national shame are contained in a little-known report compiled by the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) in 2017/2018.
This volume of papers can be described as a massive shopping list of goods Ugandans import from overseas known in customs language as the Harmonized System; a detailed commodity description and coding structure developed by the World Customs Organisation to bring uniformity to international trade by using six-digit codes to create a universal language or description for goods.
When I reviewed the list, my attention was arrested by codes 6107.11 and 6107.12 described as men or boys’ underpants and briefs of cotton, knitted or crocheted. Figures showed that Uganda imported a miserly 36,746 pieces of underwear for a male population of 16,897,849.
Even if we were to give one underwear to every male, we would still have more than 16 million free ballers roaming our streets and village paths in shame.
Ugandan businesspeople are ingenious at dodging taxes and smuggling in goods, I would be hard pressed to believe that URA missed capturing the correct figures because of undeclared or smuggled under wear. Meanwhile, records show that there was more underwear imported for women, but this was statistically insignificant because of their larger numbers.
A total of 178,646 pieces of underwear were bought in 2017/2018 for women for a total population of 17,477,061, according to population statistics from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics. This potentially left the country with more than 17 million female ‘commandos’.
There is no known medical danger posed by not wearing underwear but there is a high social cost in case an accident happens.
“Most underwear is not necessary, we tend to discourage it for boys, reason being that the scrotum is made to separate off the body so as to have a lower temperature that favours sperm development,” Dr Michael Baganizi, the medical superintendent for Kisoro hospital, said.
“Other reasons for underwear would be for hygiene and fashion purposes not necessarily medical.”
In August 2016, there was widespread condemnation when it was revealed that Ugandans were buying large quantities of used underwear (mivumba) imported from Europe and North America.
That year, civil society organisations petitioned Parliament seeking a ban on used undergarments and second-hand clothes saying they were insalubrious.
The Worldwide African Congress, a pan African organisation argued that it wanted to “save Ugandans dignity and health by advocating for a ban on the importation of second-hand knickers, brassieres, vests and night dresses.”
Earlier on June 20, 2010, the Council of Ministers under the East African Community included used underwear on the list of prohibited items. Partner states were asked to enforce the law banning used underwear and since then, URA has been impounding trailer loads of second-hand underwear.
In a January 2018 press statement, URA spokesperson Vincent Seruma boasted that they had impounded a 40-foot container which was loaded with used ladies’ underwear.
As 98 per cent of Uganda’s population goes around it’s work in humiliation, government is yet to, put in place significant incentives that would spur the growth of local textile industries to among other things, address the urgent need of underwear.
Mr Kibenge is a journalist