City authorities want importation of motorcycles to be terminated

While speaking at the National Road Safety and Mobility Symposium at Hotel Africana, Andrew Serunjogi, engineer and KCCA roads supervisor said that unregulated importation of motorcycles had led to overpopulation on the city roads and was a disaster waiting to happen.

One million motorcycles are currently operating on the roads in the country and 75% of this number is concentrated in Kampala, Mukono and Wakiso districts.

According to Serunjogi, when they attempted to structure the operations of commercial motorcycles, locally called Boda-boda, they discovered that daily more than 500 Boda-bodas are cleared to be on the road. He said that without regulation, the numbers will overwhelm the cities.

“Every day there is a company being licensed to produce them. I am told the rate is 500 per day. That is why we are concerned. Much as we need the money, we need to regulate. They are quite a number and the Ministry of Works doesn’t seem to be doing much,” Serunjogi said.

He then suggested that halting importation might restore order in the meantime as they find a sustainable solution for the traffic.

Olive Kobusingye, renowned injury epidemiologist and researcher at Makerere School of Public Health, supported the proposal saying that besides congesting the city, the two-wheelers pose great danger to the lives of road users and those who ride them.

“One would wish that we do not have a mode of transportation that is indeed that high risk. Because clearly if you have a mode of transportation that leads to so many deaths, we have to question whether it should be allowed to continue. We are not just losing lives; we are talking about the families of the deceased. The cost of using a mode of transport that is dangerous is clearly not sustainable. We have those that are permanently disabled,” Kobusingye said.

She asked the public to stop fretting over the removal of boda-bodas and consider the innocent lives of those lost to motorcycles.