By Watchdog reporter
Kampala city Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago has condemned Kampala Minister Beti Kamya’s decision to ban all tuk tuk bikes from carrying out commercial transportation of people in the city.
Lukwago says it is absurd that Kamya took such a unilateral decision to ban tuk tuks from operating within the Kampala citing that her proclamation is nothing short of a knee jerk response to a complex problem.
“This regime has given a lip service to the crisis afflicting the mass public transport sector in the country. Though trending in several countries like India, Cambodia, Kenya, Tanzania etc, Tuk Tuk are a recent phenomenon in the transport system of ou? country. Thèy can’t there be said to be the cause of the nauseating traffic gridlock or congestion in the city. Even the contention that they were licensed to exclusively carry luggage is, with due respect, ridiculous,” Lukwago says.
“As City leaders, we are doing our best, under a very hostile environment, to develop a mass public transport framework under the World Bank funded Kampala Institutional and Infrastructural Development project, which shall, hopefully, be implemented in a systematic and phased manner. As a stopgap measure, we’re crafting a raft of ordinances to regulate the existing modes of mass public transport, bearing in mind the economic hardships majority of Ugandans are grappling with. The need to create order in the city shall not drive some of us towards Madam Kamya’s repressive measures, that will definitely render hordes of youth searching for a legitimate fortune destitute,” He adds.
Yesterday, Kamya said the auto rickshaws are not licensed to carry passengers and has directed traffic police to impound them and arrest the operators.
She also directed the police in Kampala metropolitan to compile a report of the perpetrators and aggressors of violence in the transport industry for appropriate action because they can longer be accommodated in the city.
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