Focus Media (Kigali)
Shyaka Kanuma
21 October 2008
When Rwanda decided to ban polythene bags and plastic packaging materials, it seems the administration was looking only at the advantages of this move-namely to protect the environment and to end the visual pollution caused by discarded bags littering streets, alleys and roadsides.
From the moment the government banned polythene everyone charged with putting it in place and enforcing it moved zealously and vigorously to enforce the ban, even before it was written and signed into law.
Unsmiling customs officials were confiscating anything resembling polythene at all entry points into the country-often giving first-time visitors the (wrong) impression they were entering a draconian police state. It was only later that the customs people thought of providing alternative bio-friendly bags to replace polythene ones.
The state minister (at the time) in charge of lands and environment Patricia Hajabakiga who is known more than anything else for unreasonable outbursts and loud talk made it a habit to enforce the ban by conducting "spot checks" on factories and other premises where plastic wrapping is used, thus turning herself into a one-woman enforcement agency.
One such spot check the minister conducted took place on May 16 2007 at the Sulfo Industries factory in Nyarugenge. Within minutes the minister issued the following order to Sulfo: "you have to discontinue the use of plastic shrink wrapping and plastic films right now!"
Sulfo CEO Hariharan Darmarajan was dismayed.
First of all the order was abrupt; the ban was not yet law and no one was aware industrial packaging too was being banned.
Secondly it wasn't the minister's place to issue such an order but rather the work of either the Police or the Rwanda Environment Management Agency (REMA).
Third, the shrink wrapping and plastic films in question are used for the packaging of Sulfo's major products-petroleum jellies, body milk lotions and toilet soaps.
Hajabakiga issued a spur of the moment order but gave not a single suggestion what the company would use to package its goods.
The enforcement methods of customs officials and the former state minister of lands and environment characterized the general confusion, losses in profit and sales and spiking in operational costs that the ban on plastics has caused the country's industrial sector.
Poor advisors
One of the major problems the government of Rwanda has is the quality of some (if not most) of its ministers and heads of government institutions.
Someone should have advised President Kagame during initial discussions about the feasibility of the ban what it would do to the country's mightily struggling manufacturing base.
What happened instead is that the discussions focused mainly on the environmental damage polythene causes and the problem of plastic littering all over the city.
And all the ministers and policymakers were just nodding their heads and no one came up with a detailed argument or analysis of the setbacks the ban was likely to cause. None of them thought to consult with actors in the private sector for their input.
An official of the Rwanda Private Sector Federation who preferred not to be named told Focus that in his view the better thing to do would have been to ban polythene shopping bags but to exempt industrial packaging.
And after banning the use of polythene shopping bags (the biggest source of littering) another solution, suggests Ninzi Zirimwabagabo the project coordinator of Inyange Industries, would have been for government to set up a plastics recycling plant.
Citing South Africa, Zirimwabagabo said, "In other countries government recycles plastic and charges a fee to companies which use plastics. This is a more sensible way of doing things."
Instead what you had in Rwanda is all these agencies-REMA, the (former) state ministry of lands and environment, the Police, customs officials, all competing to enforce the ban without thinking of the consequences of their activities.
"Already Rwanda's manufacturers are at a disadvantage compared to counterparts in the East African region who have the advantage of bigger markets, hence bigger economies of scale enabling them to produce more cheaply," said the RPSF official who requested not to be named.
"Now the ban has created a whole new problem-as a result of using more expensive paper packaging our industries have become even less competitive."
The more vexing thing is that we have a flood of imports from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and beyond which come wrapped or packaged in plastic films, plastic bottle seals, plastic shrink wrapping and not a single Rwanda government agency is banning them.
A single visit to Nakumatt is all one needs to learn the disadvantage we have placed on our own industry with one badly implemented law.
Non-Rwandan products come attractively packaged in plastic-which by nature is one of the most versatile materials; it offers the best protection against water, humidity and the elements and at the same time is ideal for labeling.
Rwandan products in high-end shopping centers now look like poor cousins to all the imports and are placed in the most inaccessible parts of the shelves because customers tend to show less interest in them.
Who will for example want to buy water whose bottle tops are unsealed when all around you have Kenyan, Ugandan and other imports are sealed?
Sulfo Director of Sales and Marketing Atma Prakash shakes his head sadly when I ask him the question. "The sleeve wrap on the bottle necks and caps (of imports) give a competitive edge over our products," said Prakash.
Sulfo no longer can use plastic seals for its water and, according to management, it has seen a precipitous fall in sales of its 'Source du Nil' product.
Closed industrial plants
"Make no mistakes about it, protecting the environment is good but it is as if we are deliberately tying our own industrialists' hands while leaving foreign ones free to use plastics as they see fit," said Zulfikar Ali Budhwani, director general of Socobico, a Kigali-based manufacturer of toilet tissue, sanitary pads, paper towels and other paper products.
We visited Ali Budhwani at his factory in Nyarugenge and he showed us around, pointing to a sanitary pad producing machine which he says now is closed 22 days of the month.
"Sales of our sanitary pads have fallen by 80 percent because we cannot package them in plastic tissue as a result of the ban," he said. "No one wants to use pads wrapped in paper because they cannot be sure it is hygienic," he added.
To add insult to injury the paper Socobico wraps its sanitary pads in is imported at a cost three times more expensive than plastic tissue, yet because paper packaging is unattractive it leads to steep falls in sales revenues.
Ali Budhwani looks at the dormant machine and shakes his head sadly. "We have to service bank loans for this machine yet it stands idle.
"Maybe if government forced imports to be wrapped in paper like we do here we would be more competitive."
Manufacturers these days seem to spend more time writing letters and petitions to the authorities than concentrating on how our products are to stay competitive in the face of the onslaught of cheaper, better packaged goods from other East African community countries.
The main worry of our manufacturers is that as they become less competitive they are going to drastically scale back operations or close down one by one until only a very few are left.
Focus talked to Dr. Rose Mukankomeje, the general director of REMA, about the alarming situation. Mukankomeje, unlike some months back, now seems to understand the concerns of the industrialists better.
"Yes we know and are concerned about the difficulties the manufacturers face," she told this newspaper. She continued: "if you look at the law, there are provisions in place to allow for the use of plastic in exceptional cases. This can be applied to help manufacturers."
She invited Focus to pick a copy of the law at her office which we did.
Article 4 states: an order of the Prime Minister shall establish a list of polythene bags necessary to be used in exceptional cases in Rwanda. The list shall be updated at any time if considered necessary.
No one would tell us when the Prime Minister would ever issue any order to have a list of plastic products drawn up necessary to help this country's manufacturers or investors wishing to put up factories here.
In the absence of purposeful movement by policy makers or implementers it does not take much thinking to conclude that our tiny manufacturing base will only shrink further, investors will find less to attract them and more Rwandans will lose jobs or stay unemployed.
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