Billions reaped out of Malaba's rotten truck yard

Mr Obore explained that when he blocked trailers from using roads which were not gazetted for them in the town, RDC Mpimbaza Hashaka accused him of making government lose billions of shillings.

When the drivers boycotted the yard, the URA reacted in a barbaric manner, harassing drivers and removing number plates from trucks which did not park inside the terrible yard. They also imposed arbitrary fines ranging between Shs100,000 and Shs200,000 on drivers who parked outside the yard before they could restore their number plates.

Understandably, the arbitrary fines and the unwarranted harassment did not go down well with the already aggrieved drivers. The President of the Great Lakes Long Distance Truck Drivers Union, Mr Nicholas Mbugwa, ordered his drivers to lay down their tools if the Uganda government was not willing to repair the yard and the drivers were instead subjected to unwarranted harassment.

"It is totally unacceptable to harass drivers who are fighting for their rights. When a truck overturns, the driver's life is in danger, the cargo is destroyed and the truck is damaged. Does the Uganda government realise that the importer, the driver and the transporter are all [suffering] heavy losses in such a situation?" Mrs Mbugwa told Sunday Monitor on phone from Nairobi.

"When a truck breaks down, gets stuck in mud or overturns, serious damages and losses are incurred. Time is lost and all these account negatively to one's business," Mr Mbugwa further explained.

Tororo district Traffic Officer, Mr Boaz Arinaitwe condemned the act of removing number plates from trucks, describing it as "criminal." He said that a vehicle can only be deregistered by police for a traffic offense or for any other dubious activity it may have been involved in.
"Any other person who removes a number plate from a vehicle which has not committed any traffic offense is deregistering it and this is a criminal act and a police case," said Mr Arinaitwe.

The one-day strike paralyzed business in many forms. The clearing and forwarding agents lost business and remained redundant. Commodity flow, especially fuel into the country and the rest of the Great Lakes countries which use the seaport of Mombasa was greatly affected. This affected transport fares and other commodity prices.