Billions reaped out of Malaba's rotten truck yard

Malaba

Malaba is Uganda's main border point to Kenya and the seaport of Mombasa. It is the border point which also handles most of the exports and imports for the land-locked countries in the Great Lakes Region including Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Southern Sudan.

Records available in the office of the Eastern Region, Uganda Revenue Authority Manager at Malaba, Mr James Abodi, indicate that at-least 560 cargo trucks are cleared daily. And out of the 560, at-least 50 of them are fuel tankers. And on average, government collects between Shs3 billion and Shs5 billion shillings in taxes from this border point alone daily.

Despite all the revenue which government collects from this border point, one wonders whether it feels for the state of the Customs parking yard or not? It is like one milking a cow he/she does not feed.

The yard has been in an appalling state for as long as it has been in existence. It has developed huge potholes which now look more like water lagoons, fish ponds, gullies and small wells and streams.

This appalling state of affairs in October forced the long distance truck drivers to declare a boycott of the yard. They complained that their trucks were breaking down, were getting stuck in the mud while at least one truck was overturning in the terrible yard daily.

The drivers parked their trucks along the narrow murram roads in the town and caused severe damage within a very short time, raising alarm from the local leaders, like the Mayor George Alfred Obore who blamed URA and the government for causing the mess in town by failing to repair the yard before the situation went out of hand.

"This yard did not get damaged today. It has been bad for a long time and has kept on worsening each day. URA and government were looking at it," Mr Obore complained to Sunday Monitor recently.

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.

The jams and long truck queues stretched over 20km on the Kenya side and 5km on the Uganda side, causing a serious traffic problem to both pedestrians and motorists for over two weeks.

President Yoweri Museveni when meeting with the URA team led by Commissioner General Allen Kagina and Ministers; Janat Mukwaya(Trade and Industry), Mr John Nasasira (Works and Transport) and Finance State Ministers at Port Spring Villa Hotel Malaba on October 30, said that he had not been happy with long queues and truck jams he had seen on his way to Nairobi for an IGAD Summit on October 27 and on his return on October 30.

Faced with the challenge of containing the strike, URA panicked and initiated a meeting with the drivers leaders. The drivers gave 30 days for the yard to be fixed.
The remedial works expected to cost over Shs100 million shillings started during the last week of October, but drew more concern; It was very shoddy and not worth the stated amount.

Tororo RDC Hashaka voiced his concern first. He condemned the shoddy work, describing it as "a corruption cancer in the URA which was tarnishing the image of government."
During the meeting with President Museveni at Port Spring Villa Hotel Malaba on October 30, Mr Hashaka clashed with the URA boss Kagina over the shoddy work and what he termed as "lack of seriousness" by the URA in trying to get a long lasting solution for the Malaba yard.

When the clash began to take an ugly direction with Ms Kagina pompously telling Mr Hashaka that he was wasting his time reporting her to the President who would do nothing to her, Mr Museveni calmed down the situation by asking both of them to submit reports to his office within a week.

"I submitted my report just the next day and maintained my stand on the matter. We cannot accept a few individuals to mess up programmes which are meant to benefit the population and build the country's economy, by portraying a negative image on the government," Mr Hashaka told Sunday Monitor.

This yard has two faces; the beautiful and the ugly one. The beautiful one got the face-lift between 2000 and 2002 from the current state of the ugly side.

That face-lift also came after several quarrels and strikes by drivers as is the case today. But a major crusade was also conducted by this newspaper in exposing the rotten facility from which government earned billions of shillings but neglected.

At one point in 2000, Daily Monitor got permission from the District Commissioner, Teso in Kenya to take pictures of the beautiful Customs yard on the Kenya side to compare with the rotten one on the Ugandan side.

Feeling the shame after the publication of comparative pictures, government used a grant from the European Union (EU) to fix the current beautiful side of the Ugandan yard.
Unfortunately, what was repaired was just a third of the entire yard. And thereafter, government went to sleep and only woke up recently when the truck drivers again went on strike.

It will be recalled that when Mr Museveni was on his way to Nairobi for the IGAD Summit on October 27, drivers confronted him at the border and told him about the state of the yard. He promised to address their concerns on his return.

While in Nairobi, he summoned the Trade and Industry Minister Mukwaya, Works Minister Nasasira, finance ministers and the URA Commissioner General Kagina to meet him in Malaba on October 30.

On arrival from Nairobi, Mr Museveni first visited the yard. He was not amused by what he found.
Ms Kagina presented a budget of Shs8 billion Uganda for fixing the yard in two phases; phase one to involve filling the potholes with rock, draining water-logged patches and compacting with murram. And phase two to involve paving the yard with concrete, lining the drainage, lighting, fencing, installation of water and sanitary facilities and erection of necessary shelters.

The remedial work was to last one month and should have ended by the end of November and the permanent work to follow thereafter. But by December 3 when this report was filed, the remedial work alone was far from completion, casting doubts on when the permanent work would start.