Masaka city authorities move to manage transport business

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Masaka city authorities have started rolling out a plan of resuming to manage the transport business in the city.

The new era in Masaka’s public transport was proclaimed by city clerk John Behangane while addressing reporters on Tuesday.

Behangane says that the city authorities have started by banning transporters from loading and offloading passengers from ungazetted places in the city.

He says that a case in point is the ungazetted stage along Broadway road which is commonly known as Mukalazi stage where coasters and taxis have been operating for over 3 years since they stopped using the main taxi park.

He says that they have already issued a notice to taxi operators and their leadership to vacate the Broadway stage.

“We gave them up to November to return to the main park because we shall not allow any vehicle to load and offload passengers anywhere other than the taxi park,” he said. “This notice takes effect from 1st November and any culprit thereafter shall be individually dealt with the force of the law.”

The notice to vacate says the operations are intended to streamline the transport business in Masaka city and also allow the proper implementation of standard operating procedure for the control of Covid-19 and pave way for the construction of the throughway from Total Welcome to Kijabwemi.

The notice also copied to Masaka Resident District Commissioner, Masaka City Mayor, Masaka district police commander and Masaka city commercial officer ordered all taxis to return to the main taxi park.

Masaka senior commercial officer Ronald Joseph Mugerwa says that he has been tasked to enforce the implementation of the decision to have the taxi operators operate within the gazette parks and stages.

He says that the council is going to resume levying of park user fees under the law asking the taxi operators in the city to comply with the new arrangements.

“ I ask all people in the transport business in Masaka city to cooperate so we move ahead to register the vehicles operating in the city and we proceed to provide them with route chats and those without route charts will no longer be allowed to operate from Masaka,“ he added.

Mugerwa says that Masaka has three gazetted taxi parks namely Kalangala park, Villa park  which is located in Nyendo and the main taxi park.  The rest of the stages are to be streamlined and drivers have been advised to use only gazetted places.

The taxi operators have however faulted the city authorities on the move to order them to the old taxi park saying that they should first address the challenges that forced them to abandon the main taxi park.

Bashir Mawanda the chairperson of Masaka United Taxi Drivers and Owners’ cooperative society (MUTDOCS) has asked the city authorities to engage them in the arrangements of improving the taxi business in Masaka.

However, people operating businesses in the taxi park have welcomed the move to have taxis back to the taxi park asking the city authorities to work on roads that link the park to the main road because all the roads that lead to the taxi park are in a sorry state.

*****

URN