The jaguar bus company has been banned from operating on Ugandan roads for 10 days effective September 13th 2024.The state minister for works says that this decision has been made due to the various nasty accidents that the involved in more especially an accident that occurred 0n 1st September in masaka that claimed the lives of 8 people with many other Ugandans fatally injured.
This decision has been a welcome to all Ugandans and specifically the people from Kisoro but still complain that such buses should be indefinitely banned from operating in Uganda. The claim that the operators i.e. the conductors and other officers in charge of these jaguar buses are too arrogant and simply do things the way they want without considering the rights and plight of Ugandan citizens.
Thought this decision is a welcome, many complain that all other buses operating from Kisoro to Kampala, especially those that take on the route during the night usually do not consider any traffic rule or regulation and do not respect the passengers. They say these buses like Jaguar, Bismackarn, Gateway, horizon etc. do overload and the passengers are in great numbers and the traffic s non-existent on the roads or if they are there are always bribed by the conductors.
They say that such unfortunate accidents should be an eye opener to the government of Uganda and the traffic police because most of the buses that come from Kisoro during the night do not follow any traffic regulation.
They lamented that some of the buses are in poor mechanical conditions and cannot be allowed to operate on the roads of some serious countries. One citizen lamented that some buses like Bismarckan own bus that are still on the road but these buses are in poor conditions and for countries like Rwanda, such buses cannot be allowed to operate on their soil. She continues to ask why the government and the police of Uganda are so reluctant in punishing these bus owners who go against the traffic regulations.For Jaguar buses,they even have some conductors who confuse passengers and end up escaping with their transport. fees,at the beginning July this year i went to board a jaguar bus and when I reached their terminal I was confused by one of their conductor who ended up escaping with my money which I was supposed to pay as ticket.However,there are some other good workers at the terminal who helped me much until this conductor promised to pay me back my money ,a thing he did not do,for he only gave me half of that money after a quarrel over the phone.I do not want to disclose his phone number and name here but if you need more clarification i can give further details.
From the lamentations of the people from Kisoro, I can clearly confirm that it is very true that these buses are a problem, buses that operate during the night do not at all respect the traffic rules and regulations. They load passengers exceeding the required number and the traffic police officer are at times nowhere on the road and if they happen to be there, they do not act upon such offenders.
Some of the conductors of the buses go to an extent of fighting with the passengers or abuse the passengers who try to ask why the conductors are violating the traffic rules and regulations.
I personally witnessed scenarios in two buses that cleary are an evidence that these buses operating from Kisoro do not obey or care about any traffic regulation. At the end April I travelled from Nairobi from an official duty and because I reached Kampala late, I ended up boarding a Bismarkan bus,we had to travel all the night but I was shocked that these buses pick passengers along the way and load them to the extent that the bus is filled up to like 100 people, on this night a passenger that was picked from masaka tried to ask the conductor why he had no sit but instead the conductor resorted to fighting him. I had to call the directorate in police (I thank the police officers at headquarters who usually respond to calls) who directly responded and called the DPC of Kisoro to try and warn the bus owners of such stupid behavior. This conductor was so arrogant that everyone in the bus was angry and had decided to all descend on him and beat him.
Again stopping the buses along the funny points on the road to pick up customers is very dangerous, some of these e points can be used by bad elements like thieves and hijack the bus and rob the travelers of their belongings. This issue must be looked at serious, it is annoying that a bus from Kisoro travelling let say at around mid-night stops at an un secure point just to pick one passenger who is standing on the road. This is very dangerous; thieves and other bad elements may use such a trick to rob the civilians in the bus.
We call upon the Uganda police administration act on the officers operating on the Kisoro-Kampala route especially on buses that take on this route during the night.
