Jinja special hire drivers protest double taxation

Special hire drivers in Jinja town have stormed Jinja Municipal Council offices at the Jinja town hall and blocked its entrance as they were protesting what they termed as double taxation at gazetted special hire stages.

The drivers, about twenty in number, led by their chairperson Bruhan Mayanja first stormed Jinja Central division offices to submit  their complaints but were later referred to the Town Clerk of Jinja Municipal Council.

According to Mayanja, drivers under their Jinja Special Hire Cooperative SACCO were awarded a tender of collecting a monthly revenue among themselves of shs10,000 per special hire vehicle at the eight gazetted stages in Jinja town, which they have been heeding to.

He said Jinja Municipal Council awarded a Street Parking tender to Globe World Engineering Uganda Limited which is entitled to collect sh400 per hour from every vehicle that parks at any road side.

"But surprisingly we saw employees of Globe World putting parking receipts onto our vehicles parked at gazetted special hire stages and were demanding us to pay," Mayanja said.

He said that was a double taxation and this prompted special hire drivers to drive direct to Jinja town hall and park their vehicles at the entrance hence blocking it and not allowing any vehicle to be driven outside or inside the town hall.

Drivers demanded that the town clerk should come out to clearly inform the tenderer on which streets he is supposed to collect parking fees and also notify him of the special hire gazetted stages.

They said they tried to talk with Joseph Kiiza, the Operations Manager of Globe World but talks yielded nothing as he arrogantly told them to pay the fee and that the tender was awarded to him by Jinja Municipal Council which did not include in the agreement whether special hire drivers should not pay the sh400 since they were already paying the sh10,000 monthly revenue.

However the drivers managed to meet Jophram Waidhuba, the deputy town clerk of Jinja Municipal Council in the council chambers  who told them that the challenge was with poor communication between council and the new tenderer for street parking.

"Government came up with a policy of authorizing municipalities to award tenders to taxi drivers, bus drivers, lorries and pickup drivers and to special hire drivers of collecting revenue among themselves after they had finished forming cooperatives. In Jinja, it's only the Special hire drivers who were the first to do that and created Jinja Special Hire Cooperative SACCO and were awarded the tender managed by themselves," Waidhuba said.

Waidhuba said he had directed the municipality treasurer to write to him a letter indicating all gazetted special hire stages, streets on which street parking is supposed to be collected and indicate that special hire drivers are supposed to pay the sh400 parking fees when they park on other streets when they are not at their gazetted stages.

Moses Bizitu, the Speaker of Jinja Municipal Council and acting Jinja Mayor warned drivers not to resort to blocking the entrance at the Jinja town hall if they have issues adding that it disrupts businesses of other municipal employees.

Bizitu said council will write to the new tenderer for street parking and notify him about the eight gazatted special hire stages where he is not supposed to collect street parking fee of sh400.

He requested the drivers to go back on duty and stopped them from paying the sh400 parking fee.            

WHAT RESIDENTS SAY:

Isma Ssekiti: government doesn't want to see its citizens protest over small issues, we shall not allow to be double taxed and I request JMC's town clerk to convene a meeting and sit with the tenderer and show him gazatted areas of special hire stages. 

Sulaiman Mugoya: The best thing the tenderer would have done is to consult with the Town Clerk of Jinja Municipal Council in order to know areas and streets he is not supposed to collect street parking revenue but he hurriedly went ahead and started collecting it yet he is not officially introduced to the public.

Charles Kigongo: We have been in good terms with Jinja Municipal Council and we have been paying our monthly dues properly and it's the same council that advised us to form a SACCO and it awarded us a tender to collect within ourselves (Special Hire drivers) a monthly fee of sh10,000 per vehicle that we pay to JMC.

Joseph Kiiza: as a project manager of Globe World Engineering Uganda Limited, a company that was awarded the Street parking tender, we wrote to the JMC town clerk to demarcate to us areas where we are not supposed to collect street Parking fees and all the gazatted Special hire stages.    

Paul Kirunda Kibedi: The chairperson works at Jinja Central Division said that if a special hire driver paid for a monthly sticker, he is not supposed to pay for street parking fees because they are also in gazatted areas.