Taxi operators clash over management of taxi parks, seven arrested
A military police officer arresting one of the taxi operators downtown Kampala following the clash on Monday Morning. Photo by Dominic Bukenya
What you need to know:
It took the intervention of police under the command of the Central Police Station DPC Mr Henry Kintu to bring sanity at the three main parks of Kisenyi bus terminal, New and Old Taxi Parks where scores where at least seven people were arrested
KAMPALA.
Taxi drivers and operators downtown Kampala on Monday morning clashed over who should manage the business, leaving seven arrested and scores injured in the scuffle that ensued.
The Taxi Park and Stages Committee (Tapscom), a taxi group allied to Kampala Capital City Authority accuse Uganda Transport Development Agency (UTRADA), allied to the workers’ union of trying to interfere with their management of both the Old and New taxi parks.
The UTRADA members stormed all the taxi parks claiming that they had come to take over management to start carrying out duties of which they are supposed to be executing following their election in October this year at Nakivubo stadium.
They accused KCCA of allying with “hooliganisms” to sabotage the taxi operation and failing to recognize their freshly elected management led by Mr Mustafa Mayambala.
Mr Mayambala said he will not leave any stone unturned in his endeavors to put the taxi business in order and to improve the wellbeing of the drivers.
“KCCA should bury the hatchets and embrace unity of the taxi drivers. We voted a new management, which I head. We are in talks with them but they should not send their men to disrupt our operation, let them allow us to man our own affairs,” Mr Mayambala said in an interview with Daily Monitor.
He added: “We want to streamline the taxi park operations to make sure that there is security for both passengers and drivers. We want to improve the welfare of the taxi drivers and we are not ready to back off until we have achieved those goals,” he said.
However, the rival group of Tapscom under the command of Mr Yasin Ssematimba vowed not to surrender taxi park management until KCCA says so.
“Mayambala and his group are hoodwinking the public that they are the rightful managers of the taxi parks and the business as a whole but unless it is KCCA, which is mandated with the management of transport in the city that has directed that Tapscom quit taxi management, we shall never handover just like,” Mr Ssematimba shot back.
It took the intervention of police under the command of the Central Police Station DPC Mr Henry Kintu to bring sanity at the three main parks of Kisenyi bus terminal, New and Old Taxi Parks where scores where at least seven people were arrested.
