By A total of 39,000 (94 percent) of the 42,000 registered boda boda riders are operating without driving licences in the city, the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) has said.
The findings are contained in a report on boda boda census that was carried out by KCCA in collaboration with the Works ministry in September across all the five divisions of Kampala.
It was further established that out of the total 42,000 counted boda bodas, only 157 of them met all the requirements to conduct public transport business.
The findings also indicate that 73 percent (a total of 30,000 riders) don’t have log books for their motocycles and 234 riders don’t have National Identification Cards (IDs).
The KCCA’s deputy executive director, Mr Edward Luyimbazi, in an interview with this publication yesterday, said: “When you don’t have a driving permit, it means you are not trained on the rules of driving.’’
He added that the high number of boda boda riders without permits explain why more than 50 percent of the fatalities on Kampala roads are caused by booda bodas.
“The city mortuary receives up to 40 bodies a week from boda boda-related crashes,” he said.
Mr Luyimbazi said a mass training aimed at averting the road crashes associated with boda bodas will start today in all the five divisions of the city. Mr Luyimbazi said the training runs until the end of December.
Nine driving schools have been contracted to train the riders.
“All the boda boda riders must have a driving permit, the 3rd party insurance, PSV licence, a log book, an operational licence issued by KCCA, and a stage they are attached to,” he added.
KCCA targets to train more than 50,000 riders in the campaign.
Mr Luyimbazi said given the number of stages that KCCA is going to gazette, they anticipate about 30,000 riders to operate within the city. But Mr Frank Mawejje, the chairperson of Kawempe Boda Boda Association, disputed the statistics issued by KCCA.
“The percentages were exaggerated compared to the number of boda boda who were counted. Kampala has more than 100,000 riders and the number of those counted doesn’t even make half of the total,” he said.
Kampala is being used as a pilot project for the training and the Works ministry will at a later stage, roll out the training to other cities.
Training stations
The proposed locations for training riders include Mpererwe Primary School (J and K Driving School in Kawempe Division), Kisaasi Primary School (BK Transport Driving School in Kawempe Division), Marty’s Primary School Lubaga (Tamales Driving School in Rubaga Division), Kitante Primary School (Prestige Driving School in Central Division).
Others are Nakasero Primary School (Country View Driving School in Central Division), Ntinda School of the Deaf (Wefunile Driving School in Nakawa Division), Kira Police Football Field (UDSA Driving School, Wankuluku Stadium (Jet Riders Driving School) and Katwe Kikko (Harus Driving School).
