By Mike Sebalu
The lack of resources has stalled efforts by the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) to begin the towing of abandoned vehicles along highways as directed by the Speaker of Parliament.
Last week, Speaker Anita Among directed the Ministry of Works and Transport to urgently develop a policy that will operationalize the recently enacted Traffic and Road Safety law to enable its enforcement to ensure road safety.
She also directed the road body to work with traffic police to ensure such vehicles are removed within the shortest possible time to prevent road crashes.
However, Allan Ssempebwa, the UNRA media relations manager says they have resorted to a wider stakeholder engagement to solicit the necessary resources to kick-start the removal of all abandoned vehicles along highways.
He says they are also looking for competent service providers to execute the job.
“We had a programme in the past to tow all abandoned vehicles however, this could not kick off without a wide stakeholder engagement and also it could not kick off without the needed resources but however we know it helped because we tried to call-to-action road users, especially motorists, owners of the abandoned vehicles to quickly take them off the road,” Ssempebwa said.
