KCCA to review Old Taxi Park stages ahead of reopening

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT |  Kampala Capital City Authority- KCCA is reviewing stages for taxis to operate in the newly renovated Old Taxi Park.

Last week, KCCA released a route chart to be followed by taxi operators who were scheduled to return to the Old Taxi Park on on May 22nd, 2021.

However, the reopening was postponed to an unknown date with KCCA saying, they were still engaging with stakeholders on different issues.

Speaking to Uganda Radio Network (URN), the Ag. Deputy Spokesperson of KCCA Robert Kalumba said that they are reviewing stages in the Park before they can open. He said without revealing the exact date that the park shall be reopened soon after re-arranging stages.

The Chairman of Kampala Operational Taxis Stages Association (KOTSA), Rashid Ssekandi says the route chart that KCCA had issued had flaws. He says a number of stages were duplicated, something taxi Operators feared would cause conflict among them.

For instance, KCCA had listed three stages leading to Mukono, all exiting the Park through Burton Street, to Jinja Road, Namanve and finally Mukono. The only difference was that another stage would go up to Katosi.

The Chairman of the Uganda Transport Development Agency (UTRADA), Mustafa Mayambala says they also need to resort the issues of leadership at stages outside the Park. At Burton street there is a Bweyogerere stage just like there is in the Old Taxi Park.

“We needed to resolve this before getting back to the Park. We asked for an extension to engage the leadership at the two stages as a way of harmonizing stages,” said Mayambala.

Last week, KCCA said they would resume operations against taxis running illegal stages on streets. But, Mayambala says this would cause conflict if operations were to resume before operators get a waiting place.

The renovated taxi park can accommodate 344 taxis out of the 400 that were initially there. KCCA had earlier asked taxi operators to find a waiting area to keep taxis before entering the Park. The plan was to have only taxis ready to load taxis to come to the Park rather than crowd the Park.

“We didn’t want KCCA to reopen the park and start impounding taxis in the streets yet some taxis have missed out on space in the Park. Hundreds of taxi operators would probably end up in cells,” said Mayambala

He says they secured a waiting area in Nsambya with a capacity of at least 1000 taxis. He says they are still preparing the land.

Some taxi operators don’t know yet where they shall park their taxis. Tom Kubulwa, a taxi operator on Bweyogerere Stage in the Old Taxi Park says it is easy to get a waiting area and organize taxis to respect the system if there is good leadership.

Kubulwa says government should guide taxi operators to vote for a unifying leadership other than the existence conflicting groups.

They say they shall adjust to the new arrangement of having to wait outside the Park and only access it when there are passengers for them take to their destinations or when the previous taxi had loaded and left already.

KCCA started renovating the Old Taxi Park in May 2020, and was scheduled to complete works in three months. However, it has kept postponing the reopening citing several reasons including heavy rains that affected excavation works. So far, construction of the pavement layer has been completed.

Final works on the drainage system and the periphery are underpay. KCCA is also yet to construct the pedestrian shelters, renovate the buildings in the park and construct a toilet block for users of the Park.

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URN