Wakiso lost over 400m due to taxi operator wars

Jun 23, 2016

All town council heads were ordered to submit their reports

Wakiso district has lost over 400m to taxi operators' fights and a Presidential order to stop the tenderer from collecting money in February.

This was revealed by the acting senior financial officer Wakiso district David Kabaale in a workshop where all the sub county chiefs and their accountants plus the town council leaders were prepared for the implementation of the trade licensing amendment act 2015 held at Wakiso district headquarters on Wednesday.

Kabaale also ordered all the town councils and the sub county heads to submit their reports regarding service providers in their areas saying that the district is not going to work with any service providers who have got a debt with the district.

"We are going to follow the law and recover our money from all the service providers who failed to pay our money in time" said Kabaale.

He further added that taxi parks will be looked into saying that their failure to pay the district was partly attributed to the constant fights among themselves and the presidential campaigns which led them to perform poorly in revenue collection.

"Those who have failed to perform well in licenses, property rates and local service tax are going to be blacklisted and we will not work with them because we need aggressive people who are able to collect revenue as expected" he added.

Markets were singled out as one of the best performers in revenue collection in the district and Kabaale attributed it to the associations market traders create adding that markets without associations have not done well and they should also form associations.

Service providers are supposed to pay the district money for 3 months before collecting revenue and many of them failed to do so and one of such company which faces the threat of being blacklisted is that of Wakiso District Hawkers Association with offices in Nansana.

Wakiso district commercial officer Robert Wasswa Mpakibi said that the new licensing amendment has brought some changes in that traders have been following the calendar but the new act 2015 strictly follows 12 months.

Wasswa has appealed to all traders in the district to start keeping their business records as it is needed by the new law saying that one of the intentions of the amendment is to get trade statistics in the district.

Town council mayors and sub county chiefs are to immediately start collecting revenue in line with the new trade amendment.

However, Bussi sub county accountant Isaiah Musoke Kisiki note one challenge in some parts like Bussi where the main activity is fishing, business is seasonal and if they start strictly following the 12 month model, they will find it challenging.

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