UTODA's monopoly can be ended by open bidding
Jun 29, 2011
EDITOR: For too long Ugandans have been held hostage by the shoddy and substandard services of the Uganda Taxi Owners and Drivers Association (UTODA). Uganda’s current public transport system belongs to a bygone era. People need to understand what the Kampala mayor, Erias Lukwago, is trying to do.
EDITOR: For too long Ugandans have been held hostage by the shoddy and substandard services of the Uganda Taxi Owners and Drivers Association (UTODA). Uganda’s current public transport system belongs to a bygone era. People need to understand what the Kampala mayor, Erias Lukwago, is trying to do. I fully support him.
He is right to point out that UTODA’s contract has expired and to demand accountability from the transport body. Any student of economics will tell you that good services cannot be attained in a monopoly and that is exactly what UTODA has always been. In assessing UTODA’s value there are important questions we must ask.
Why is it that passengers must trek to the mishmash taxi parks to board taxis when taxi parks are not taxi stages but were meant to park vehicles? Why are there mini-markets and hawkers congesting these two taxi parks? Why is it that there are hardly any taxi or bus stages operating on a timetable basis along the designated taxi-routes? Why do taxi-drivers often veer off their designated routes into side roads? Is this not indiscipline? Taxi operators always hike transport fares during traffic jams. Is this not exploitation? Passengers are often at the mercy of taxi-conductors who often fleece them withholding their change. Why do taxi conductors squeeze passengers into their vehicles? No passenger who uses a UTODA taxi can be happy. Passengers use these taxis only because there is no alternative.
Don’t Ugandans deserve better than this or are we doomed to be trapped in this quagmire forever? UTODA’s stranglehold must be broken by openly bidding for public transport in the country.
Josepha Jabo
Kampala
He is right to point out that UTODA’s contract has expired and to demand accountability from the transport body. Any student of economics will tell you that good services cannot be attained in a monopoly and that is exactly what UTODA has always been. In assessing UTODA’s value there are important questions we must ask.
Why is it that passengers must trek to the mishmash taxi parks to board taxis when taxi parks are not taxi stages but were meant to park vehicles? Why are there mini-markets and hawkers congesting these two taxi parks? Why is it that there are hardly any taxi or bus stages operating on a timetable basis along the designated taxi-routes? Why do taxi-drivers often veer off their designated routes into side roads? Is this not indiscipline? Taxi operators always hike transport fares during traffic jams. Is this not exploitation? Passengers are often at the mercy of taxi-conductors who often fleece them withholding their change. Why do taxi conductors squeeze passengers into their vehicles? No passenger who uses a UTODA taxi can be happy. Passengers use these taxis only because there is no alternative.
Don’t Ugandans deserve better than this or are we doomed to be trapped in this quagmire forever? UTODA’s stranglehold must be broken by openly bidding for public transport in the country.
Josepha Jabo
Kampala