KCCA spends Shs 10 billion on upgrade of Old Taxi Park
Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) has announced plans to reopen the old taxi park on Saturday this week for operations to resume.
KCCA started the renovations at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020. Over Shs 10 billion has been spent on the upgrade.
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According to the KCCA Director Engineering James Byamukama, the renovated park has a capacity of only 340 taxis.
"We shall open it to taxis this Saturday. This work started when we had some space at time when public transport was not moving," Byamukama said.
Byamukama said that the renovated park will have 44 routes with entries and exists on Buton Street and Ben Kiwanuka respectively.
Byamukama also said that they have come up with road charts which they have drawn on each of the entries and exists into the park.
"The routes that will operate from the Old taxi park are 44. All the main hospitals can be accessed directly from there."
Asked about the mode of payment for taxi drivers, Byamukama said that KCCA has opted for bank payments to avoid the cash exchange which brings about corruption and mismanagement.
Taxi operators will have to pay around Shs. 720,000 to Shs.840,000 annually.
"For revenue purposes, the money is paid on the KCCA Channels in the bank, the taxi operators have been guided about the process," Byamukama said
Although over 2000 taxis were operating in the old taxi park before renovation, only 340 are to be allowed now with only 27 stages.
Byamukama said that the decision was reached after meeting with taxi operators bodies. Stages like of Entebbe were removed to ease on the congestion.
