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Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | About 4.8 billion shillings has so far been collected in the ongoing operations against traffic penalty defaulters.
Although the traffic police headquarters at Nateete police station have not yet divulged the total collection, a senior traffic officer has revealed that by Wednesday last week, they were short of less than 200 million shillings to hit five billion shillings.
The traffic officer added that Kampala metropolitan has almost 60 percent of the total collection from penalty defaulters attributing this to the biggest number of vehicles that flock the city every day as people go to work or go for shopping including trucks that offload goods every day.
“I am sure if we added the collection from Thursday and Friday last week, we might have more than five billion shillings so far. But Kampala metropolitan has contributed almost 60 percent of this collection. We are optimistic that our target of unpaid penalties will be achieved,” a senior traffic officer said.
Police through Senior Commissioner of Police Fred Enanga, the police spokesperson accompanied by traffic police spokesperson ASP Faridah Nampiima, on August 19 announced that operations against penalty defaulters were targeting to collect eight billion shillings in unpaid tickets.
Rogers Nsereko Kauma, the Kampala metropolitan traffic police commander said that as of September 15, two billion, one hundred eighty-six million had been collected from penalty defaulters.
“We began this operation on the August 22 and up to September 15, 12,388 vehicles had been impounded. We re-issued 16,174 tickets. The collections were up to 2,186,870,000 for Kampala metropolitan only,” said Kauma.
However, traffic police have encountered numerous challenges in a bid to collect eight billion shillings in unpaid penalties. Kauma explained that many drivers had tickets with uncoordinated details like number plate, place where the traffic offence was committed or the car make.
For instance, some drivers have been issued with tickets from places they have never been too or their number plates are on car makes which they have never driven in their life. Kauma said there are drivers of Premio or Raum cars but the tickets indicate they were driving Escania, Buses or Trucks bearing number plates on their small cars.
ASP Nampiima has reminded drivers whose vehicle number plates were captured by the Closed Circuit Television – CCTV cameras driving beyond the stipulated speed in some areas to clear the penalties by close of business today. Failure to do so, Nampiima said such vehicles will be impounded as part of penalty defaulters starting tomorrow.
Police have also cautioned drivers against driving responsibly only when they know traffic officers are on roads but be careful and mindful of other road users.
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