Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Kampala Capital City Authority-KCCA has postponed the implementation of Road User Fees to next month. The charge is levied on passenger vehicles including taxis and buses.
Last year, the cabinet made a resolution reinstating the charges that President Museveni had suspended in 2017 after taxi operators complained of exorbitant charges. They were paying 120,000 Shillings every month.
A statutory Instrument issued by Minister for Local Government Raphael Magyezi, last year, indicated 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.
The Director of Revenue Collection at KCCA Samuel Sserunkuma says the fees whose implementation was meant to start in January shall only be implemented after the Ministry of Transport and Works has issued permanent route charges to taxis and buses. He says they are working with the Ministry to see that all is set by March and can start collecting the fees.
Registration of taxis and buses started in May 2020 after government partially lifted a nationwide lockdown prompted by the COVID 19 pandemic. KCCA registered and allocated temporary routes to taxi operators while the Works Ministry issued the temporary route charts that expired end December 2020.
Winston Katushabe, the Commissioner Transport and Road Safety at the Ministry of Transport and Works say some taxis had been allocated two charts implying they could ply two different routes while in some cases there was the duplication of routes by KCCA, something they needed to rectify.
“We didn’t want to start implementing a process where you find there will be challenges in the long run. So we agreed that we put a team in place. A team had been reviewing looking at route charts. You find that a taxi has a route chart but the departure terminal is different from that of other minibuses (taxi) plying in the same route.” said Katushabe.
He says the road user fees can only be effected after collecting data that indicates which taxi operates on what route.
He says they are working with key stakeholders in the industry including taxi drivers and conductors to harmonize the exercise.
Mustafa Mayambala, the chairman of Uganda Transport Development Agency-UTRADA says they are ready to pay the fees as soon as government concludes issuing permanent route charts and gazettes more parks.
The government had gazetted only eight parks; Old Taxi Park, New Taxi Park, Namayiba, Usafi, Nakawa, Nateete, Namirembe and Kisenyi park. The operators asked that more parks like Kaleerwe and Kibuye are added to the list which KCCA agreed to.
Mayambala says when they start paying, they shall then demand better service delivery in terms of better road infrastructure and parking space among others.
However, some taxi operators still think the fees are high. Although they will be paying lower than the previous 1.4 Million Shillings annually, they say it is expensive to pay the money as a wholesome.
Hassan Lubowa a taxi driver plying Kampala Mukono route says is worried that when Implementation starts, they shall engage in running battles with KCCA and Traffic Police requiring them to clear the fees just like the third party.
Another driver, Julius Katonga says the timing is bad considering that they are still recovering that the country is strained by the pandemic and the economy has not yet normalized.
KCCA expects to collect in park user fees at least 8 Billion Shillings from taxis and Shillings 2 billion from other commercial vehicles a year. For taxis that operate in Kampala, all the money shall be collected by KCCA but payments shall be made through Uganda Revenue Authority- URA.
For taxis that go beyond Kampala and the Metropolitan areas, KCCA shall get 60 of the money collected and the rest goes to the other Local Government where the taxi sets off.
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