Park user fees illegal: Lord Mayor

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The City Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago says the park user fees being collected by Kampala Capital City Authority-KCCA are illegal.

Speaking in the council meeting at City Hall on Wednesday, Lukwago said that there is no law or ordinance that establishes the fees payable by passenger vehicles including taxis.

In 2020, the cabinet resolved to reinstate the charges that President Museveni had suspended in 2017, after taxi operators complained of exorbitant charges. They were paying 120,000 Shillings every month.

The Minister for Local Government, Raphael Magyezi then issued a statutory instrument indicating that vehicles carrying between seven to twenty passengers, including taxis, would pay 720,000 Shillings annually. This would apply to vehicles operating within KCCA jurisdiction.

Vehicles with the same capacity but operating beyond KCCA jurisdiction would be required to pay 840,000 Shillings while those with sitting capacity from 21 passengers to over sixty would pay an annual fee of 2.4 million Shillings.

But Lukwago says that the Minister for Local Government doesn’t represent Kampala because Kampala is not a Local Government. He says that if KCCA is to use a statutory instrument, it should be issued by the Ministers of Kampala and not their Local government counterpart.

Recently, the Director for Revenue Collection at KCCA, Sam Serunkuma said they had so far collected about 5 million Shillings from the over 12,000 taxis registered in 2020.

For taxis that go beyond Kampala and the Metropolitan areas, KCCA is entitled to 60 percent of the money collected and the rest goes to the other Local Governments from where the taxis set off. Serunkuma says that KCCA would start enforcing the fees after the end of March and impound the vehicles of defaulters.

Lukwago says that even having Uganda Revenue Authority-URA collect the funds meant to be local revenue for the Authority and having KCCA bear the burden of endorsing the fees on taxis outside Kampala is irregular.

KCCA expects a collection of eight billion Shillings annually from park user fees. The Deputy Director of KCCA Eng. David Luyimbazi told the council that if they stopped collecting money from taxis, it shall not realize their projected Non-Tax Revenue and hence finance their budget.

The KCCA speaker had convened the council to deliberate the takeover of land in the Old Taxi park by the taxi operators. A resolution was passed by the council that KCCA repossesses the contested plots and technical leaders take notice.

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