Bus owners’ concerns now forwarded to Museveni

The meeting between three ministers and the bus owners under the Uganda Bus Owners Association (UBOA) yesterday failed to bear any fruit and all issues of controversy were referred to President Museveni for advice.

According to the Minister of Local Government, Mr Raphael Magyezi, who chaired the meeting, the matters referred to the President include permanent halting of the payment of park user fees worth Shs2.4 million for each bus per year, having a consolidated fee of Shs1.8 million per bus per year and setting up government bus terminals.

“This statutory Instrument (The Local Governments (Amendment of the 5th schedule) Instrument, 2020, was willingly agreed upon between bus owners/operators and the President in October 2018. We still have to go back to him to authorise us to go ahead and make further amendments,” he said.

Mr Magyezi, however, said as consultations continue, bus operators will be allowed to pay Shs840,000 like the taxi operators.

Bus owners also wanted the government to set up bus terminals to be managed by UBOA as a way of mitigating what they describe as exorbitant gate collection fees by the private bus terminal owners.

“Secondly, you want the government to set up its bus terminals for you to operate from, this one also has to be referred to the President since it has a budget implication,” Minister Magyezi added.

But the minister stated that in addition to the old bus terminals in the 10 cities, government has in the recent past constructed new bus terminals in the towns of Moroto, Entebbe, Arua, Busia and Mubende, among others, and that it also has plans to have bus parks in all urban centres in Kampala Metropolitan Area under the new World Bank-funded project.

The meeting was attended by ministers Magyezi, Gen Katumba Wamala of Works and Transport as well as Ms Minsa Kabanda for Kampala Capital City Authority and Metropolitan Affairs, among other technical staff in the respective ministries and government agencies as well as bus operators.

The meeting, however, resolved that all of the three ministers meet all private bus terminal owners in Kampala with a view to agreeing on the fees payable by the bus operators. According to UBOA, each bus pays Shs53,000 for loading from privately owned terminals, which the committee observed as being on a high end.

 Mr Magyezi added: “KCCA and other local governments should take over the collection and disposal of garbage from the parks to minimise the operation costs of bus operators. Bus operators claim to be paying Shs1.2m per year (100,000 per month) for garbage collection, which hikes their operating expenditure per bus per year.”

The meeting asked the associations of both bus and taxi operators to engage the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Police over issues of the Express Penalty Scheme (EPS).

The bus charges

According to the Statutory Instrument by the Ministry of Local Government, Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) is mandated to charge every individual operating a medium omnibus Shs2.4m per year but bus owners call for a harmonised of Shs1.84m per bus per year.

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