RUTO changes tune on Mitumba and vows to ban them even after demonizing RAILA for suggesting the same – Look!

 

Wednesday, November 2, 2022 – The government of President William Ruto has made a U-turn on second-hand clothes, popularly known as Mitumba, to the utter shock of hustlers.

This is after he vowed to ban the importation of Mitumba to protect local textile industries as well as create millions of jobs for the jobless youth.

Speaking during the Changamka Shopping Festival at KICC, Ruto, through the Trade, investment, and industry CS Moses Kuria, said the government will ban the importation of second-hand clothes once they find an alternative.

“We are going to ban Mitumba once we give people an alternative and we will give alternatives,” Kuria said.

According to Kuria, part of the alternatives include a focus on empowering the local textile industry to ensure the country produces its own cheap clothes.

The CS termed as ‘misguided’ the notion that Mitumba clothes are cheap.

“I will work with the textile industry to ensure that we make cheaper clothes available in this market, and then we will ban Mitumba when we give people an alternative,” he said.

Surprisingly, this is exactly the same thing that former Prime Minister Raila Odinga had proposed in his manifesto in the run-up to the August 9 General Election that saw Ruto, Kuria and the entire Kenya Kwanza go wild on him.

They demonized Raila, calling him a dynasty for being insensitive to the small hustles Kenyans are engaged in.

They vowed to protect and uplift Mitumba business owners, saying that over four million hustlers depend on the business to feed their families.

Moses Kuria even went ahead to visit Gikomba to buy Mitumba underpants just to show solidarity.

But now that they are in charge, they see no need for Mitumba and now want them out of the Kenyan market and hustlers have to bear with them.