Open letter to minister of transport, on taxi, bus fares
I want to express my concern regarding public transport in Kampala City and its suburbs.
During the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, the President, while lifting restrictions on public transport, directed that taxi owners/operators should observe standard operating procedures (SOPs) as one of the measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
As part of observing the SOPS, regarding passenger taxis, was a 50 per cent sitting capacity, which consequently resulted in hiking of transport fares by taxi owners and operators. While the hiked fares strained many passengers, it was a welcome move to enable people to resume work following a long ban on public transport making it difficult for many to get to their workplace.
However, several months later, there is no observing of any single SOP in taxis and buses even when they now operate at full passenger capacity. Worse still, they continue to charge the same fares as if they are still operating at half cent capacity.
From Gayaza to Kampala, for-example, passengers pre-Covid-19 used to pay between Shs2,000 and Shs2,500, but this increased to Shs5,000 when taxis started carrying only 50 per cent passengers as they observed SOPs. Today, however, the taxis still charge Shs5,000 one way even though they operate at full capacity.
In Mukono, the pre-Covid19 one-way trip to Kampala would cost between Shs2000 and Shs2,500. During Covid19, this went up to Shs7,000. Today, these taxis continue to charge Shs7,000 even in some cases with excess passenger numbers, in total disregard of Covid19 SOPs. These are but just a few cases to show that taxi owners and operators are taking advantage of the Covid-19 situation.
The pandemic has destroyed people’s livelihoods with just a handful of businesses slowly bouncing back. And even those few that struggling to re-bound could go down as owners have to keep up with the increased cost of living and operating in a very uncertain environment.
I, therefore, request the minister of Transport to institute an independent investigation into the conduct of taxi and bus operators across the country, especially in regard to the fares being demanded from passengers without even observing the Covid-19 SOPs.
In future, it might be helpful to set a ceiling on fares across different routes to stop taxis from fleecing passengers.
Nathan Were,
[email protected]
