Police, KCCA to apprehend boda boda cyclists who engage in crime

Kampala Capital City Authority has tried several times to register and regulate the boda boda industry in the country but the city authority is yet to succeed.

Officials say this is partly because cyclists have a tendency of hiding the registration plates on their motorcycles, which is illegal and creates suspicion among passengers.

Hiding registration plates by folding, rubbing off some numbers or using one registration plate for the new series that are meant to have two are some of the vices the traffic police is fighting to end among boda boda riders.

Police say these are some of the motorcycles used by wrong elements to carry out their criminal activities.

Charles Ssebambulidde, the traffic police spokesperson said these cycles are used to snatch bags, phones, transport wrongdoers among other crimes.

"If you’re supposed to have two number plates and you remove one, it is also an offence. If you bend the number plate so that it cannot be seen from far, that already indicates that someone is doing it with a sinister motive," he said.

The chairman of the Boda Boda Technical H. Members’ Association, Moses Jjemba, said they have made several attempts to report bad elements within the industry but the police have not acted to their expectation.

Kampala Capital City Authority spokesperson,  Daniel NiweAbine said, KCCA was working with other government agencies to regulate the industry after unsuccessful attempts by past leadership.

He said six months ago, the authority attempted to register riders but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the exercise failed.

Safe Boda co-founder Rapa Thompson said they had put up a quality control team that moves around the city to monitor the behaviour of their cyclists.

"We have a team that monitors all the traffic lights points across Kampala basically to have an eye and monitor the behaviour of our drivers," he said.