By Ssebuliba Samuel.
Parliament has passed the Traffic and Road Safety (Amendment) Bill, 2018 with amendments that will now effect a ban on the importation of vehicles that are 15 years old or more from the date of manufacture.
Initially, government had proposed a ban on importation of old vehicles that are eight years, but the parliamentary committee on Finance in its report recommended that age limit on importation of used motor vehicles be phased from 20 years by reducing the date of manufacture by 3 years every subsequent year.
Several members of parliament opposed the position of government noting that this will affect a number of Ugandans who can’t afford to purchase new cars that go for over Shs400m.
However, during the heated debate state minister for Planning, David Bahati accepted MPs’ calls and increased the ban from the proposed 8 years to 15years which was accepted by the House.
The committee noted that government is projected to lose shs 182bn from the ban of motor vehicles above 8 years and that government needs to attract investors into the motor vehicle assembling industry by gradually phasing out of used vehicles while encouraging purchase of new vehicles.
