On Tuesday30th September Business people and Special Hire Taxi drivers operating within the Taxi park held a heated meeting with top municipal council authorities over a proposal that was initiated by the Taxi park drivers to charge every vehicle entering the park a fee of Shs.1,000. The Taxi drivers who operate under their umbrella Entebbe Liberty Taxi-park operators Association last week on Wednesday clashed with special hire drivers and other business people who operate businesses within the park over a proposal to charge every vehicle Shs.1,000 on every vehicle that enters the park.
The business people were represented by Wandera who operates a cyber café while Nkuuba David represented the Special hire drivers. They called on the municipal authorities to clampdown on the Taxi drivers whom they said were being greedy.
“If they begin charging every vehicle Shs.1,000 that enters the Taxi park our customers will run away” the business vendors stated.
“Different people come to the Taxi park because we offer different services which they pay for, so it is unfair to charge another extra Shs 1,000 for people with vehicles” the business Vendors stated.
According to the Municipal Mayor Kayanja Vincent the Taxi drivers were awarded the tender to run the operations and management of the taxi-park in an agreement that both the Taxi drivers and municipal council agreed to. Both the Municipal authorities and Taxi-drivers agreed that out of the Shs.45 million collected every month, only 20 million is sent to council as Taxes and the other Shs.25 million is retained by the Taxi-drivers association as funds to run the daily operational expenses of the Taxi-park.
Kayanja called for another meeting next week on Tuesday that brings together the three stake holders together to iron-out the issue to charge every vehicle a shs.1,000 fee which the vendors and special hire drivers have out rightly protested.
Other sticking issues that were discussed included the lax security in the taxi-park, accusations from Taxi-drivers that food vendors are dirty and are unhygienic while the Business people accused the taxi-drivers of selling fuel within the park which can easily spark a fire outbreak. Other business people who operate lock-ups accused their landlords for failing to pay their ground rent on time and therefore their businesses are shut-down because of delayed payment of rent charges.
The business people and special hire drivers accused the taxi-drivers for bringing policies without consulting them. They also accused some municipal council authorities of pocketing bribes from the taxi-drivers and therefore become “untouchables”.
Kayanja urged the three parties (special hire drivers, Taxi drivers and business people) to set-up bye-laws that will bring sanity and order in the park. The bye-laws will help reign in on the people who litter the park with rubbish and those who urinate in the park.
