It's a humid morning, the sun is just rising and to Mwesigwa (real name undisclosed) it is as lucky a day as he will ever dream to have in his life-he is going to purchase a taxi. Apparently, taxis in Uganda cost 45-50M ugx when new and between 15-25M ugx when used. Mwesigwa has been promised a UAR 473R-a used taxi with a milage of upto 5000miles.
Since not everyday is a lucky one, he forgets to check the car parts and instantly pays for the car, it's a great day to start doing business on the Kampala streets! As said through the annals of time. "once bitten, twice shy," Mwesigwa gets a conductor and driver for his brand "new" car! Averagely, taxis earn about 60,000UGX per day when in good condition and that ammounts to a huge 1.8M UGX for Mwesigwa at the months' end.
Since not all that glitters is gold, Mwesigwa receives a call from the driver that the car has a diff problem, it will cost 700,000 UGX with labour. KCCA (which regulates the taxi operators, has issued a new tax to be paid). Mwesigwa has to pay up to 400,000 UGX in taxes, not including the servicing and labor for his two employees. It has just dawned on Mwesigwa that he will take home only 60,000 UGX as his income for the whole first new month in his taxi business!
Such is the taxi business land scape in uganda. Alot has changed since the first taxi set its wheels in Uganda. KCCA puts the number of public service vehicles in the city is 15000 units, and the boda boda at roughly 300,000 with those registered at 120,000 units.
To a Kampala city dweller, the use of PSV's isn't a negligible thing, if you want to dodge the usual morning and evening traffic, bodas are a quick way to navigate the city streets. But the numbers of the same has gone to a level which has called for government intervention due to a number of things associated with bodas and taxis.
High crime rate with the use of PSVs, over congestion, high accident levels, and unruliness with adoption of new public transport guidelines has created a rift with the government.
So comes the much needed COVID 19! To the green one, its a respiratory disease associated with pneumonia symptoms but unlike pneumonia, it can lead to death due to organ failure; spread through physical touching and breathing in infected particals.
One can't deny the link to the spread of a disease which has killed up to 80000 in the US alone and having up to 3.5M cases world wide.
To the professionals, the curbing of public transport was seen as a starting point to curb the disease but also as a jump start point to liberate the Kampala streets from the unprecedented levels of boda bodas and taxis.
According to the Minister for Kampala, Betty Amongi, Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) wants bodabodas and taxis barred from resuming operations in Kampala for another 28 and 42 days, respectively, when the national lockdown is lifted.
This is coupled with the introduction of the operation of a bodaboda-free zone in the central business district and support the establishment and training of more accountable associations in the industry, such as Taxify, SafeBoda, and Uber.
To go forward, one must accept to take a step to shake of the chains of bondage, in bringing on taxify and other digital transport associations implies the total removal of illegal and undocumented boda bodas and taxis from the city. This brings the former self employed population into the hands of a few decision makers heading these associations.
Despite the cleaning of the streets this will bring into the city, more taxes and control for the government, a lot of the youth are going to suffer because, not only due to loss of employment bought in by not being technologically savvy to adopt this new trend, but also the customer is going to lose due to the monopolistic tendencies this endeavor is going to put on the fares for a working day-to-day Ugandan.