Authorities in Lakaya Town Council, Kalungu district have permitted taxis plying the area along Kampala- Masaka high way, to make stopovers in the semi-urban center to allow vendors sell off their products.
This marks a significant shift of policy among taxi drivers from Masaka and other areas, who had resisted paying a Shs. 2000 charge, levied on their vans passing through Lukaya en route to and from Kampala city, that sought to access the area park.
Taxi drivers from Masaka city had vowed never to pay such levies, arguing that they will not make double payments, since they pay similar levies to authorities in Masaka taxi park.
The same drivers had vowed to offload and load passengers in Lukaya on the roadside without entering the taxi park, as a move to bypass the levy.
This however provoked a sharp response from authorities, who decided to ban entry of these taxis into the park, on top of restricting them from making stopovers on the roadsides in the area.
Tamale Charles, the LC III chairperson for Lukaya Town Council in an interview with this website revealed that Council authorities have now reversed a policy by allowing taxis en route to and from Kampala, to make temporary stops in some of the designated areas.
This move is intended to benefit Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) as business owners are expected to make some money after selling some of their products to awaiting passengers in the vans.
These taxis have also been permitted to access the taxi park in Lukaya town, which was recently launched, to be able to load and offload passengers.
Tamale Charles also asked Lukaya traders to immensely support this new arrangement, including relocating to the newly constructed toll market in Lwera, to allow the rapid expansion and development of this fastest growing semi-urban area. Vendors have however repeatedly shunned the market.
He appealed to these traders, chiefly roadside roasted meat and food vendors to shift to Lwera toll market, a move he said will help this market to grown rapidly.
“We all benefit from the arrangements to modernize this market, but the council does not want to exert pressure on traders to cooperate and relocate to the market,” Said Tamale.
“We decided to undertake a major shift in our policies, and made a decision to allow these taxis to load and offload passengers from the taxi park here after obtaining a ticket on paying only Shs. 2, 000,” Another Town Council leader by the name of Ssendegeya Robert revealed to this website.
These developments come at a time when food vendors, most especially sellers of Katogo are bitterly complaining about the drastic impact of the abnormal rains, which have left them counting heavy losses.
These vendors have complained that the relentless rains in this wet season scare away levelers, who instead choose to stay indoors, hence loosing crucial customers, making their sales to drastically go down.
“The non-stop rains make it hard for our customers to reach here, previously I would make Shs. 60,000 a day but these days, it is hard to even make Shs. 20,000 a day,” said Nakyeyune Miriam, a Katogo seller in Lukaya Town Council.
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