UTODA DISMANTLED MODERN TRANSPORT SYSTEMS? If you want to understand the mentality of Uganda leaders, drive on Uganda roads, visit any Uganda town, Kampala streets or visit Uganda town bus and taxi terminals. Certainly many of these locations, are quite different from politicians homes who always prefer high-sounding names i.e. Muyenga, Buziga, Ntinda, even if the place might lack proper sewerage facilities or a proper road one powerful man in a banana republic.
In nature, common sense and rationalism are combined to come to social and system organisation among higher primates i.e. human beings. That is not among Ugandan political class! The implications are deeper, for an African Politician, driving in a traffic jam or passing by a filthy town or village, cant see anything and in that respect if is a powerful politician, has nothing to do to rectify the situation. There is more to this fact, IMPROVISING by these types. A politician will on that basis get ten policemen to follow him through a traffic jam. Or will make sure he becomes a minister to acquire a four will drive, to beat the pot holed road to his village or squeeze himself through the commons. I am amazed by this behaviour structure! The above is a scientific study! It has been raining, and you can imagine; a mangoes, passion fruits, bread or taxi drivers parking in the middle of huge excrement flow, sending a terrible stinking foul smell and that is okay for UTODA and this government. You might blame KCC however, government policy is such that KCC will not have a mechanical engineering section but rather procure services as the case might be in Global Fund or any other NRM government social services sector. Uganda, has no known motor and vehicle industrial establishment to either meet her transportation needs or replace the existing, despite an over 20-year advent of Japanese made mini-buses. Mini buses are a precursor to a modern Uganda transportation system. Its millennium disaster resulting into dismantling of (colonialism) Uganda Railways (UR) and Uganda Transport Corporations (UTC) by NRM. Welcome come to Uganda government transport policy. Individuals alleged to be Uganda Taxi Operators Association (UTODA) utilised the gap to capture the trend above. Subsequently launching the most primitive transport system ever, in Ugandas modern history. UTODA today, is a limited company of, which usefulness as an association for taxi drivers is more political and profit maximisation than meeting the countrys socio-economic and health needs. Ask any taxi driver if they know who and what UTODA is, few even know the proprietary of that entity and what it stands for! UTODA is a dreaded entity by all taxi drivers and discussing or mention of UTODA appears to send shivers among them. Yet, taxi drivers operate in the filthiest, congested and most toxic environment ever known in Uganda. Taxi and bus drivers are the most psychologically and sociologically affected labour force in Uganda. Politicians predominantly own taxis and buses. Drivers and conductors, wake up at 05.00 a.m. and get off their jobs at 11.00 p.m., implying they work more than 15 hours a day. It is a negative trend for family men and a sole reason why taxi drives, are the source of the gravest Uganda modern social ills; like drug use, excessive alcohol intake and violent behaviour. Taxi drivers have a higher incidence of violence among them, than any other working group in Uganda. In a sentence taxi drivers have lost all human dignity forced or indirectly brought on them. The recent presidential and parliamentary election not a single drive dared mention any other party other than National Resistance Movement - you can imagine the primitivism despite the oppressive conditions these people work in! As bodaboda, taxi drivers are expected to shout political slogans even though they get nothing from the state. Scientific driving regulations, a person driving a public service vehicle will be working only working 4 5 consecutive hours and resting for 1 2 hours before resuming work afresh. That is in civilised societies that care about the health of their own people. Uganda taxi drivers have to take to his boss between 50,000 to 70,000 shs daily and on top of that pay taxi fees raging from between 4500 per route and monthly fee of 20,000 in addition to taking care of fuel and mechanical needs. Funny enough when motor vehicles particularly matatu and buses slaughter people, Uganda police interpret it as over speeding overlooking the very origins of the problem forcing taxi and buses driver working into such terrible omnivorous conditions as illustrated above. Given that Kampala is a wetland, basic hydrological engineering study shows the city would be utilising water transport on Lubigi and Nalukolongo, Mayanja, even on garbage filled Nakivubo channel as alternative transport system. Further still, these river systems could be providing huge amounts of electric hydropower, designed at Kyambogo or in the worst scenario at Makerere University. The revolutionary could not see that but they are revolutionising. It should also be noted paved roads and motor vehicles tyre friction generates a lot of pollution in these water bodies. Vehicles tyres are made of very toxic petro-chemicals. The pollutants accumulating in water, has an irreversible negative effect on marine ecology. Transport economics, transcend mere point of human daily activities and per se survival, which informs the ideological basis of the current NRM government. Transport economics is an engine driving modern economies, right from the advent of European incursion into overseas lands travelling by boats. No! Uganda Africans can lambaste European for having colonised African and that is it. It is surprising therefore, the National Resistance Movement government that has so frivolously than any other government, in the history of Uganda, talked about industrialisation, has in no concretely terms defined by, which means and basis industrialisation will be propelled other than adding value. Goat meat and vanilla powder from Kasese will sell in Rwanda and Congo since it is costly to transport them where the items are most needed! Value addition as if it is readily given, can easily be eaten away by high transport costs, a reason why few Ugandans are found in the fish and flower export industry and a good number in old clothes than apparel trade! Besides, transport technologies dominating world economies and industrial establishment, none of such, has bothered the current governments economic set up, for the past 20 years. Industrialisation goes hand in hand with planning a cost effective transport system. Planning space (spatial planning) i.e. location of industrial establishment, transportation of bulk cargo, processing zones and human settlement became a major academic field in pre-industrial Germany, later Britain, Europe and the world, under the guidance of a Germany spatial economist Alfred Weber. Interestingly, NRM government has spent millions developing what it called war roads in northern Ugandan. Of what strategic importance and on what studies were these roads made?! These can also be called ideological roads, as a measure for quicker transportation of troops in war zones and the southern Sudan. This however, is not an NRM innovation but an Alexandrian war invention that resulted into modern road construction to transport two wheel chariots. Through its autonomous (from Ministry of Works, Housing and Communications) road agency formation unit (RAFU), Uganda on the one hand is outsourcing to foreign firms virtually all road construction. Once again deskilling Ugandans and denying them too, an effective way of adapting to a modern transportation system and appended technologies. In essence, alleged Uganda governments support of UTODA is disabling technological development appended to modern transportation infrastructures. Air-conditioned self-service bullet trains, hydraulic buses, taxi cubs riding in high-class limousines is not on a Uganda African level! Really, there is nothing more revealing about NRM government mental and ideological disposition than the pitiful and piggy conditions that rules in UTODA managed Old and the so-called New Taxi Parks. The filthy, foul stench, potholes and congestion, is a reflection of the most primitive order this government has presided over and Ugandans have ever experienced. I vividly remember Amins Nile coaches that operated from Bombo! Human health conditions are at stake, for both commuters and labourers in both taxi parks and the city. Diesel fumes, dust, urine and human faeces all combined with fresh food vendors, shows the level of understanding UTODA attaches to what they call taxi and taxi terminal management. Once one tries to travel on lake Victoria that wide water body, is filled with dust stirred up by minibuses on Kampalas dirty murmur roads. Minibuses weigh from about 5000 8000 tonnes fully parked African way. With fully pumped types solid as rocks you can imagine the impact on the paved and non-paved road network. Construction, maintenance and production cost for roads is almost leading to the collapse of their entire road sector economy, was it not for colonist goodwill and support. Minibuses are metals of which usefulness to our environment is more catastrophic than being advantageous. Besides the 7000 minibuses are consuming and spiting out carcinogenic fossil. Guzzling fuel ramshackle vessels that do not meet any proscribed traffic standards as per Uganda laws cost he country way above 100 million dollars annually. Ugandans should rise up and sue UTODA for endangering the citizens. The people of Uganda are footing a bill of over US 160 million dollars on fossil fuels yearly. What a burden on the citizens! The social cost and slum development in Uganda is a function of higher transportation costs. My study of all slum dwellers like the Batoro, Baganda, Bakiga, Banyankole, Ateso, Balugbara, reflects a population that has shifted from villages to come near their workstations. Interestingly so food vendors, fish monger, brewers make sure they have a permanent place of abode at their workstation usually a shack i.e. where they sell their produce and products. It is a factor of higher transport costs. Walter Christaller another Germany geographer was obsessed with central places i.e. trading centres usefulness in provision of amenities and utilities. This though has not bothered this government since they see minibuses and UTODA as a harbinger in their so-called industrialisation stance of the nation. So let slums be after all bonna bajagagawara! In my humble submission the government must prevail over UTODA and ban it from operating in high-density areas. UTODA is dangerous to the nation state; socially, economically and environmentally. Consultant Bwanika - Nakyesawa Luwero Bwanika ________ http://www.idrconsulting.com --> for your consultancy needs _______________________________________________ Ugandanet mailing list Ugandanet@kym.net http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/ugandanet % UGANDANET is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including attachments if any). 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