KAMPALA: Masaka City leaders are divided over the management of public transport in the area.
The dispute is pitying Florence Namayanja, the Masaka City Council Mayor, and Michael Mulindwa Nakumusana, the Chairperson of the Nyendo-Mukugwe Division, who are bickering over fines levied on taxis operating from ungazetted parks and stages.
The misunderstanding arises from a pronouncement last week by the Mayor that suspended the impounding and charging of fines on taxis that operate outside the gazetted parks and stages within Masaka.
According to Namayanja, her office has received several complaints of highhandedness and rampant extortion by the enforcement teams, leading to several vehicles being vandalised after they are impounded.
In November last year, authorities in Masaka City closed all illegal taxi parks and roadside stages in the area, and accordingly set a penalty of 200,000 Shillings for non-compliance.
Namayanja and a section of city councillors instructed the leadership of Masaka United Taxi Drivers and Owners’ Cooperative Society-MUTDOCS to halt their operations against non-complying taxi drivers, accusing them of cruelty.
She said that even though the city’s leaders wanted to change how the public transportation business was run in the area, they didn’t like how the policy was enforced.
Her position has, however, generated disagreement from the leaders of the Nyendo-Mukugwe division, who have described it as unreasoned and a contradiction to the decision of the City Council.
Namayanja, the division chairperson during the council session, castigated Namayanja for single-handedly making a pronouncement without consulting with the relevant stakeholders.
He indicated that besides reinstating chaos in business and trade order in the city, Namayanja’s statement will directly affect their local revenue collection targets because it halts the levying of fines that are contributing a monthly average of Shs 13 million to the city coffers.
Nakumusana warns that the uncoordinated statements by the leaders will plunge the city into unwanted confusion that will be dangerous to the local government, hence affecting service delivery.
Bashir Mawanda, the Chairperson of Masaka United Taxi Drivers and Owners’ Cooperative Society-MUTDOCS, has also asked the Mayor to reconsider her pronouncement, threatening that it may incite all drivers to return to the roads and operate illegal stages.
He argues the mayor was misguided by a few errant taxi operators who didn’t want to observe the laws governing the transport industry.
But Namayanja insists that her leadership cannot tolerate brutality continuing in the area, indicating that besides charging ambiguous fines, the enforcement teams have been operating outside the legal processes.
Meanwhile, Ahmed Kateregga Musaazi, the Masaka City Deputy Resident Commissioner, has offered to arbitrate the misunderstanding between the leaders.