No Sanitizer, No Work for Moroto Drivers

The Chairperson Moroto Taxi Drivers Association Twaha Kanonya has banned taxi drivers from accessing the parks without a sanitiser. This is one of the measures to ensure that public transporters follow government guidelines as they resume operations after 42-days of the lockdown.

Kanonya says that all taxi drivers, loaders, brokers at the terminal must sanitize while each driver must have proof that they have a sanitiser for passengers before accessing the park. He adds that any driver who will be found loading passengers without a sanitiser will be fined up to 100, 000 Shillings.

Sanitising has been promoted by health experts as one of the measures to keep coronavirus at bay. The others include handwashing with soap and water, maintaining a safe distance from anyone who is coughing or sneezing and wearing a face mask.

He issued the order this morning after meeting the drivers and other workers of the bus park.

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The Chairperson of Moroto bus Terminal, Emmanuel Okwakol has also advised the drivers to ensure that they carry 50 per cent capacity to ensure physical distancing. Similarly, only passengers the drivers are ensuring that all passengers wear masks.

Meanwhile, drivers are excited to get back to work again after government easing the lockdown.

Okwakol says they are excited to resume work. He says life during lockdown was very difficult because they never earned anything despite having many responsibilities Twaha says that they are charging twice the normal transport rates because they are carrying only 50 per cent capacity.

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However, there was low activity at Moroto Bus Park with no passengers. Taxis heading to Kotido, Nakapiripirit and other destinations within Karamoja other than Soroti remained idle as there were no passengers for the respective routes.

All bus companies have not yet resumed business. An employee of the Gateway Bus Company who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to speak for the company said the buses will be making their first route to Moroto tonight and the return journey resumes on Tuesday morning.

Elsewhere, passengers remained stranded in Kotido, and Kaabong as there were no public means of transport. According to Martin Ojera, a resident of Kotido town, drivers for different routes could not go because the passengers were less than a third were not willing to pay for the rest of the seats.