The service operations of the Coca-Cola depot located along the Kampala-Jinja highway in Mukono Central Town, Mukono Municipality frustrate the government’s road safety plan.
The depot with the biggest clientele in the central town attracts the company’s heavy trucks to offload and others loading the various Coca-Cola products for distribution within almost no parking lot.
The process not only inconveniences traffic movement along the highway but also makes it more difficult for pedestrians navigating the stretch.
Gorreti Nabankema, a resident of Mukono town says trucks at the depot occupy the entire space they would use as a walkway giving them no option but to compete for space with vehicles and speeding motorcycles on the highway.
“We have notified the municipal authorities about the need to shift the depot to a convenient place but nothing is being done, probably they need to register accidents involving hundreds of people to take action.” She says.
Another resident Sharon Nakafumbe believes intervention from the Central government to create a user-friendly pedestrian walkway along Kampala-Jinja Highway may take decades, however, she equally believes once the municipal authorities regulate businesses along the route it shall be a quick pedestrian road safety intervention within Mukono Municipality.
“We spend a lot of hours calculating and gaining confidence on how to walk along the road amidst speeding motorcycles and vehicles. We are left with no option, the pedestrian wing is occupied by heavy trucks connecting from the buildings to the edge of the highway. It is a hurdle for both children and adults now to walk in Mukono.” Nakafumbe notes.
Karimu Mugoya, also a resident of Mukono town says the situation becomes more difficult in the evening hours as vendors also parade food stoves and farm produce targeting people returning from work.
“The municipality charges operation fees from all these vendors, now the only option a pedestrian has is to dodge through the risky road. Owners of big hardware shops and beverage depots secure their perimeters with ropes, the moment you insist on walking through them, you risk shooting from their security guards.” Mugoya shares.
Our efforts to speak to the depot manager have not yet yielded. However, one of the depot workers who declined to reveal her name says the depot has both the Coca-Cola and the municipal clearance.
This website has established that like many other businesses contributing to road safety inconveniences in Mukono town, they receive licenses from the municipal commercial office without any site assessment.
The Town Clerk, Francis Byabagambi since coming to office last year has been promising to review business operations as well as recall licenses for especially beverage depots such as Coca-Cola. The town clerk has yet to take action.
Once the authorities continue to pay less attention to business operations, government energies towards road safety management, safe road infrastructure, vehicle safety and safe road use and post-crash response will be funded for nothing.
On October 14, 2022, the government launched the National Road Safety Action Plan 2022-2026 through the Ministry of Works and Transport.
The five-year Action Plan aims to reduce road crash fatalities and injuries by 25% by 2026. It is aligned with the Global Plan for Decade of Action 2021 – 2030, a result of the UN General Assembly’s adopted resolution A/RES/74/299 “Improving global road safety” with the ambitious target of preventing at least 50% of road traffic deaths and injuries by 2030.
The government considered an estimate of UGX 645b to fund the five-year action plan.
Road safety experts from this website observe that road safety is both a public health problem and an economic issue. The burden of crashes on the economy is manifested in the form of loss of lives and property, medical care, loss of earnings, damage and loss of property, and repair and replacement of accident vehicles.
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