The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The police has warned private car owners against turning their vehicles into taxis. Speaking today at the Uganda Media Centre, Fred Enanga, the spokesperson of the Uganda Police said they have reports of how private cars are now carrying people bringing them to Kampala.
Enanga said that they have deployed their CCTV cameras to monitor cars on the streets and those they see continuously picking and dropping passengers will be stopped and questioned and if found in abuse of the rules, they will be penalized.
President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni last week eased restrictions on the use of private cars allowing them to resume operations today. However for anybody to travel in a private car, they must have a face mask. Also, only three people including the driver are allowed in a car.
For public vehicles, the restrictions on their movement will be lifted next week provided the government provides free masks to every Ugandan aged six and above. In March when President Museveni banned public transport, many private car owners converted their cars into taxis charging exorbitantly in some places up to about ten times the normal transport fare.
This forced the president a week later to ban private transport too arguing that it was working in countenance to their strategy of limiting vehicle movement in a bid to fight the spread of the coronavirus disease.
“Some private car owners have turned their cars into taxis by transporting two people thinking that they are family members yet in fact, they are passengers who are paying exorbitant fees. The problem we were trying to cure was not being addressed because they don’t know who is suffering from,” said Museveni on March 31, while declaring a total lockdown on the country.
Meanwhile, Frank Baine, the spokesperson of the Uganda Prisons Services said they have given security officers manning roadblocks orders to arrest any errant drivers misusing the road.
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