Overloading of heavy commercial trucks appears to be a major challenge on Uganda’s roads, if returns from fines generated against culprits is anything to go by.
Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) collected a whopping UGX3.5 billion in fines in just a month. The fines were collected from 129 trucks impounded for breach of the new axle load regulations.
Overloading fines worth UGX3.5 billion has been collected from truck owners as UNRA changes to issuance of express penalties for overloaded trucks in the new Vehicle Dimensions and Load Control Regulations, 2017.
Previously, overloaded trucks were subjected to court fines.
The new UNRA regulations seek to control and manage the usage or activities carried out on the road, the road reserves and the ferry landing sites as well as protecting these assets from abuse.
The regulations were made under section 37 of the UNRA Act on July 24, 2017 and were gazette on August 31, 2017 under Statutory Instrument No. 45. They were launched on November 11 2017, became effective on January 1, 2018 but actual implementation began on February 5, 2018.
According to Rauben Byaruhanga, the Director Roads Infrastructure Protection at UNRA, the biggest amount of pending fees was levied on five trucks which had an excess of over 31.5 tonnes accounting for Shs.2.65 billion. Five of the vehicles recently impounded each had an excess of over 31.5 tonnes.
According to Byaruhanga, most of the impounded trucks are those taking or bringing merchandise to or from either Sudan or Congo.
“Seventeen vehicles of the 22 vehicles that were overloaded in excess of 10 tonnes (beyond the 56-tonne limit) were involved in cross-border haulage to or from DR Congo,South Sudan and Rwanda. This is mainly because some of these countries like DR Congo still have very weak laws on heavy loading,