Daily parking fees for motorists abolished

Local government minister Tom Butime made the announcement during a press conference at the Uganda media center in Kampala this afternoon.

He explained that instead of the daily levy, cabinet has endorsed the monthly payment of parking fees in order to ease accountability. “Informal Levies have encouraged an explosion of ungazetted stages and illegal fees collected by unauthorised groups which is a burden to taxis and buses operators. For that matter, all daily parking fees are abolished with immediate effect,” Mr Butime said

According to the Ministry of Local Government, taxi and bus operators have been paying statutory levies which include PSV license fees of Shs 300,000 and Shs1,500,000 for taxis and buses respectively. They also pay a presumptive tax of Shs 280,000 for taxis and Shs1,440,000 for buses, parking fees-80,000 for all PSVs, inspection fees, a bi-annual fee of Shs 125,000 for taxis and 800,000 for buses.

They are also expected to pay a road user fee of 120,000 per monthrnBut in addition to the formal taxes, public transport operators were subject to a series if informal taxes at stages.

These include; welfare, stage management fees, stage permission fees, stage loading, touting charges and other fines that are not sanctioned by the courtsrnButime says that such informal taxes sparked unrest, disgruntlement and resentment among the public transport operators. rn rn rn

Government has equally reduced the amount of parking fees of passenger service vehicles by 44 percent and 60 percent for both taxi and buses respectively. Butime says that government decided to reduce on the amount of parking fees to protect the interests of passengers, park operators and the different local governments in the country rn

Beti Kamya, the Minister in Charge of Kampala says that the ban is in line with President Museveni's directive to streamline taxes in the public transport sector.

The directive followed complaints against multiple charges by Taxi Operators