Owners of vintage cars petition parliament to keep old number plates

Owners of vintage cars have petitioned Parliament to be allowed to keep the old registration plates of their cars as a historical symbol and a qualification of heritage that their cars represent.

James Ayo, the President of the Uganda Vintage Car Club said that many of them have been forced to re-register their cars to acquire the current number plate series when changing ownership or acquiring car insurance.

"We are deterring them from fully preserving their cars to their original state and in entirety their historical appeal,” he said.

The car owners made this appeal on Tuesday during the flag-off event of the mobile museum that included the vintage cars as part of the events to commemorate the International Museum Day.

The cars which were paraded together with other vintage collections were viewed by MPs and members of the public before proceeding to the national museum in Kampala for the rest of the celebrations.

Deputy Speaker, Thomas Tayebwa said it is important to collect and preserve items that remind us of our history and where we came from’.

"I have been motivated to look up and properly preserve my old personal items and property so that I have something to look back to," he noted.

Tayebwa later flagged off the cars which will now be on exhibition at the Uganda Museum, calling the rigidity of the authorities responsible for car registration "unnecessary" because the cars were important historical items to their owners and the public at large.

He promised to consult the Commissioner in the Ministry of Works and Transport charged with car registration to see that the practice is reversed and the cars re-issued with their original number plates.