A new column every Tuesday by Saeed Sidoman  ·  sidoman.com

The Communiqué and the Gazette

Two presidents promised on 4 May to end trade barriers. The next morning, a Finance Bill proposed a 35 percent tax on Tanzanian glass. How that story ended is the best introduction to East African trade law you will get this year.

By Saeed Sidoman   |   Tuesday, 6 October 2026

On Monday 4 May, in Dar es Salaam, two presidents did what presidents do best. They signed eight memoranda, praised the brotherhood of two peoples, and set a deadline: every remaining non-tariff barrier between Kenya and Tanzania would be gone by 30 June.[1]

On Tuesday 5 May, Kenya published its Finance Bill, 2026.

Buried in the amendments to the Excise Duty Act was a proposal to delete the exemption that lets glass bottles from East African Community partner states enter Kenya free of excise duty, and to charge 35 percent instead.[2]

Call it coincidence, or call it a government with more than one department. State House handles the handshake. The Treasury handles the Gazette. They do not always compare diaries.

This is the first Trade Law Tuesday, so let me say what the column is for. In this region, anyone who moves goods deals with two kinds of document. One is signed in front of cameras and called a communiqué. The other is applied at the border and called a gazette. Cargo answers only to the second.

A bottle with a long memory

The glass was not a random target. Kioo Limited, Tanzania’s leading glass maker, expects to supply about 40,000 tonnes of bottles to Kenya this year, and Kenya takes roughly 32 percent of its export volumes. It put the cost of the proposed duty at about $7.7 million on imports worth about $22 million.[3]

Kenya has been here before. In March 2020 it imposed a 25 percent excise duty on imported glass bottles with no EAC carve-out. Kioo took the matter to the East African Court of Justice, arguing that the duty discriminated against Tanzanian glass in favour of Kenyan glass and breached the EAC Treaty and its Customs Union and Common Market Protocols.[4] In November 2020 the court’s First Instance Division suspended the duty pending a full hearing. Kenya appealed. Before the appeal was heard, Parliament repealed the duty in the Finance Act, 2021 and expressly exempted glass bottles from EAC countries. The Appellate Division then struck out the appeal.[5]

One precision, because several commentators have skipped it. What the record shows is an interim suspension and a legislative retreat, not a final judgment on the merits. Kenya was stopped, not sentenced. That does not make the 2026 proposal harmless. It makes it a rerun of a dispute Kenya chose not to finish.

The 2026 proposal also went well beyond glass. The Bill would have removed the EAC rules-of-origin exclusion from more than twenty tariff descriptions, so that a Ugandan or Tanzanian product meeting those rules would pay the same excise as one from anywhere else.[[6] The Kenya Association of Manufacturers reminded MPs that about 30 percent of Kenya’s own exports go to EAC partner states; the 2026 Economic Survey puts those exports at Sh351.2 billion for 2025.[7] Taxing your neighbour’s goods is never a one-way street. Neighbours have tax codes too.

How it ended, and why that is the useful part

It ended in retreat. At the Finance Committee’s public hearing in Kiambu on 26 May, Coca-Cola and Anjarwalla & Khanna were among those who objected to removing the exemptions.[[8] By the time the Finance Act, 2026 emerged, the deletion had been dropped across the long list, which included furniture, paper, plastics and safety glass. One analysis records float glass (heading 7005) as the sole exception.[9] Whether glass bottles kept their carve-out is a question for the Schedule to the Act, not for a column. Check the heading before you rely on it.

What most plausibly did the work was not the Treaty, which was exactly as binding in April as in June. It was a hearing room full of people who would have paid. Regional law in East Africa is real, but it is enforced less by judges than by invoices.

The practical lesson is a calendar. The weeks between a Finance Bill’s publication in May and its assent in late June are the cheapest litigation window a trader will ever get. A memorandum to the Finance Committee costs a few hours. A case in Arusha costs far more and arrives far later. Watch the Bill, not the Act.

Dar es Salaam does its homework

In fairness, nobody in this story has clean hands. Tanzania imposed levies on Kenyan eggs, dairy, meat and confectionery in March 2025. Kenya’s agriculture authority put a 2 percent levy on Tanzanian cereals and legumes in August 2024, then suspended it after protests.[10] Everyone has taken a turn as the villain.

So credit where it is due. Under Tanzania’s Finance Act, 2026, the Industrial Development Levy, which ran between 5 and 15 percent of CIF value, has been removed on goods originating in EAC partner states. It had burdened 49 Kenyan export products, among them iron and steel products, road tractors, cement, furniture and ceramic tiles.[11] Kenya’s exports to Tanzania slipped to Sh63.6 billion in 2025 from Sh67.2 billion, while Uganda took Sh162.3 billion. Nairobi now talks of pushing Tanzania past Sh130 billion “over the next few years”. That is an ambition, not a forecast, and should be discounted accordingly.[11]

Two other promises from 4 May need a legal instrument before they count. The first is standards: KEBS and Tanzania’s standards body are to align testing and certification, so that a product cleared in Dar es Salaam is not inspected again at Namanga or Holili. The second is a 30-day dispute-resolution window under a new Kenya-Tanzania Business Council.[1] A memorandum is a promise with a letterhead. I will believe in these when I see the legal notice.

Preferences are loans, not gifts

The same rule applies when the counterparty is not a neighbour.

AGOA lapsed on 30 September 2025. Kenya’s apparel exporters, whose goods make up about 70 percent of Kenya’s exports to the United States, shipped into a market charging ordinary duties. A one-year retroactive extension followed in February. On 4 September, President Trump signed the AGOA Extension Act (H.R. 6500), which runs to 31 December 2028 and was carried inside a federal funding bill, a vehicle with the advantage of actually passing.[12]

Two details matter to traders. Duties paid during the gap are to be refundable, with the Government expected to help exporters apply to US Customs and Border Protection. And the third-country fabric provision survives, so EPZ garment makers can keep using imported yarn and fabric and still ship duty-free.[12] The sector supports more than 66,000 direct jobs, which explains the relief.

China’s offer is different in form. Under an Early Harvest arrangement toward the proposed CADEPA, Kenyan goods enjoy zero-tariff access, matching Beijing’s treatment of 53 African countries from 1 May.[13] The Chinese ambassador says avocado oil exports have risen 700 percent and coffee exports have nearly doubled.[13] Those are an ambassador’s numbers, on a small base: in 2023 Kenya bought about Sh459 billion of goods from China and sold it about Sh29 billion.[14] A zero tariff on a small export is a door, not a delivery.

Both arrangements share a legal nature that is easy to forget in the celebrations. AGOA is a US statute with an end date. China’s zero rate is a unilateral policy sitting beside an Early Harvest deal while a full agreement is still being negotiated; Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi said last Wednesday that Kenya is ready to open comprehensive CADEPA talks.[13] Preferences are granted, and what is granted can be conditioned, reviewed or left to lapse. They are loans, not gifts, and the repayment terms are written in rules of origin, certificates and customs entries.

Checklist for traders before next Tuesday

1. Track the Bill, not the Act. Diarise publication, committee hearings and assent every year. If you cannot appear alone, speak through your association. The manufacturers’ submissions in May are the model.
2. Keep your proof of origin. Kenya’s excise carve-outs and Tanzania’s levy removal both attach to goods that originate in, and meet the rules of origin of, EAC partner states. The carve-out is only as good as your paperwork.
3. US exporters: pull your entry records for the lapse. Talk to your US customs broker about refunds. The process is still to be detailed, so gather documents first and forms later.
4. China: a zero tariff is not a market. Confirm that your product line is covered and that your goods meet China’s sanitary and registration requirements before you book the vessel.
5. Price the promise. Put a tariff-change clause in every contract. Stays of application run for a year, Finance Acts bite every July, and gazettes arrive whenever they like. The clause has one job: to say who pays if the law changes between signature and arrival.

Why Tuesdays

The region’s trade story is told in headlines about harmony and in footnotes about exceptions. The money is in the footnotes. Every Tuesday this column will read both, say which one binds, and keep the jokes about the length of a customs form: short, and occasionally rejected.

Communiqués are for the cameras. Gazettes are for the cargo.

A note on the column. Trade Law Tuesday is general public-interest commentary and education. It is not legal, customs or tax advice, and it is not a ruling. Rates, notices, court orders and schedules change; this column reflects reported positions as at 5 October 2026. Verify the heading, the instrument and the effective date for your own goods with KRA, the relevant EAC and Tanzanian instruments, and a qualified professional before you act.

Saeed Sidoman is a lawyer and PhD candidate in strategic management at JKUAT, researching how senior managerial capabilities affect firm performance in Kenya’s manufacturing sector. He is founder and CEO of Sidoman Group, advising importers, exporters and manufacturers on legal customs compliance, tariff strategy and regional trade law across Kenya and East Africa. Comments and corrections are welcome at info@sidoman.com.