Julius Luwemba 
The new Kitooro Taxi Park
The new Kitooro taxi park that was commissioned early this year, is expected to raise Entebbe municipality revenue collection with additional sh300m annually. This was revealed by Emmanuel Mugisha Gacharo, the town clerk during the official opening of the taxi park.
However, before the commencement of the construction, Vincent Kayanja the (then) mayor noted that the municipality used to collect about sh300m annually, from the taxi park and about sh3m monthly from tenants operating within the same park. Kayanja was optimistic that upon the completion of the taxi park, sh60m would be collected monthly.
Meanwhile, the current town clerk Gacharo noted that the park was constructed at a tune of sh10b, with three blocks to accommodate traders. The construction was contracted to Scaffold engineering and construction company. Mayank Mashru, the accountant under Scaffold company said, the first block has 72 lockups while the second block has 77 lockups and the third block has 100 lockups bringing to a total of 249 shops within the park.
The new taxi park was constructed under the Uganda Support to Municipal Infrastructure Development Programme (USMID). In 2013 the World Bank Board approved an International Development Association (IDA) credit of US$150 million to finance urban infrastructure and improve service delivery in 14 municipalities in Uganda.
The six-year project aimed at expanding urban infrastructure, and enhancing the capacity of the 14 municipal local governments to generate their own source revenues, improve urban planning, and strengthen financial management, procurement, environmental and social systems.
The 14 beneficiary municipalities are geographically spread across the country including, Arua, Gulu, Lira (Northern Uganda); Soroti, Moroto, Mbale, Tororo, Jinja (Eastern Uganda); Entebbe, Masaka (Central); Mbarara, Kabale, Fort Portal and Hoima (Western Uganda).
While commissioning the new infrastructure in January, Fabrice Rulinda, the municipality mayor noted that traders who previously occupied the shops in the old park, were given priority to occupy the new lock-ups.
However, some traders reportedly missed out on the shops. To this, Lovy Wandera the former chairperson of taxi park traders explained that over 380 traders had earlier been registered yet, the available lockups were only 249.
“But the municipal officials have accepted to locate space within the adjacent Kitooro market where the remaining traders will be accorded the lock-up shops because there is still enough space in the market,” Wandera noted.
Meanwhile, the mayor also gave a grace period of 3 months to all the traders within which they’ll be exempted from paying for rent, save for the water and electricity bills. “We anticipate that within the 3 months, traders shall have their businesses well established and also recoup their clientele,” Rulinda stated.
Charles Kabwama, the municipality deputy mayor said, sh57b was budgeted for the current financial year of Entebbe municipality. “Sh8b is expected to be collected locally, sh17b will be remitted under the greater Kampala metropolitan affairs project which aims at infrastructural development and the remaining monies shall be received from the central government,” Kabwama noted. He thus expressed optimism that the new taxi park and affiliated shops will beef up the local revenue collected from within the municipality.
The municipality mayor Rulinda also revealed plans of upgrading the bus park in Entebbe town, in order to accommodate the new buses plying Entebbe-Kampala route as well as enhancing more sources of revenue for the municipality.
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