Transport fares up as schools re-open
Students board a bus to school in Kampala yesterday. Schools re-open for first term today. PHOTO BY GEOFFREY SSERUYANGE
Kampala. Taxi operators have increased transport fares by between Shs500 and Shs2,000 as students reported back to school yesterday.
The Shs500 increase is for routes within Kampala whereas the Shs2,000 applies to routes from Kampala to towns across the country.
By press time, Daily Monitor had not established from the Kampala Capital City Authority, which took over the management of the taxi parks from Uganda Taxi Drivers Association last month, what it will do to ensure passengers are not exploited.
Although many parents had by last evening taken their children to boarding school, a few head teachers this newspaper spoke to said they had not settled their children’s school fees.
“Most are peasants; they depend on agriculture for survival. Most complain that the dry season has [negatively impacted on agriculture, and had] left them jobless and without [earnings from produce] to pay the required 30 per cent initial tuition,” Masaka SS head teacher Musa Mpungu said in a telephone interview.
He said they allowed parents who are hard pressed to pay the fees in installments.
Ms Harriet Nankya, a parent at Silver Spoon Primary School in Kampala, said she had returned her child to school but with only what is necessary for her to start.
Ms Nankya is also worried that some school administrators might increase school fees against the backdrop of taxes imposed.
Recently, government announced that schools administrators have to remit six per cent of monthly payments that exceed Shs1 million to suppliers of items such as fuel to Uganda Revenue Authority.
URA commissioner general Doris Akol, warned schools directors and head teachers against tampering with their accounts in order to evade the taxes.
