Prime
Road indiscipline by public officials should interest IGG
Mr Odumu is a lawyer.
What you need to know:
- The wanton abuse of traffic rules is an arbitrary act and is prejudicial to the interests of us all Ugandans and the IGG ought to interest itself in this new manifestation of abuse of office to give full effect to the philosophy behind that enactment.
- The new team at police headquarters ought to urgently publish which convoy or vehicles we should give way and in which context. It should also state the justification for such a privilege.
Fellow citizens, we have a new epidemic in Kampala. Our forefathers did not bequeath to us a State House which would become a symbol of impunity and I am not talking politics.
This impunity is manifested from the pre-occupation with lead cars, convoys, menacing escorts armed to the teeth , loud blaring sirens, roof top lights, driving on the right, driving on the pavements, driving on pedestrian walkways, overlapping, blocking oncoming traffic, cutting through lanes by just about any important personage in our country.
But State House and Office of the President vehicles are the biggest offenders, which reflect the contemptuous, harassment, disdain, torture, degrading treatment and indignity subjected to the Ugandan population by the political class, heads of state agencies, bureaucrats on public roads has reached crescendo.
Now where is this bullying motorists off the road more pronounced than on Entebbe Road, ostensibly as the builders of the nation rush in and out of their offices to plan for us, the driving behaviour of government officials and drivers has sunk so low that the bizarre has begun to look normal.
Whereas The vehicles (Convoy) of the President, the Vice President, Chief Justice and Deputy Chief Justice, the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of Parliament, The vehicles of Prime Minister are authorised and categorised under the emergency category in the traffic regulations and may disregard the normal traffic regulation, still I do argue that it was not the intention of the framers of that law that the convoy of the President would mean state house vehicles going for refuelling routine or presidential vehicles carrying the Presidential veterinary doctor from Rwakitura to Kizosi, or that convoy of the Speaker would mean parliamentary vehicles returning from Kamuli to pick the Speakers sick mother.
Even the widest statutory interpretation could not have envisaged the scenarios I have just enumerated, in other words, if the Person of the President , or the Speaker or the Chief Justice is not in that convoy then that is not the convoy of the office holder envisaged in the law, why would presidential vehicles going to Toyota for routine maintenance or refuelling menacingly throw other motorists off the road. Because what the law intended to cure is securing the President or the Speaker surely cannot be the purpose or aim of such a convoy when the office holder is not within that assemblage of vehicles.
The hashtag Stay in your lane being championed by this newspaper, for example, from twitter user Akeda4 “Madam PS Ministry of Healthy save us from the man driving this car on Namugongo Road - UG 2074M,(picture) from Joseph Beyanga”.
Even your senior officers are disrespecting traffic rules Toyota Prado UP 4780 on Jinja Road, from @ Madiba4ever “This Prisons pickups does this to us every morning Ug 0215U, space can allow me to highlight the hundreds of cases where government officials overlap, drive on the right, loud blaring sirens, flashing roof strobe lights in total disregard of traffic rules and regulations, the acts are totally criminal and I dare add within the ambits of the anti-corruption law.
The said acts of road indiscipline should interest the Inspector General of Government (IGG), for a broad interpretation of the law places this heinous and most barbaric acts on our roads by public officials within the ambit of section II of the Anti-Corruption Act, abuse of office, is when a person who being employed in a public body or a company in which government has shares, does or directs to be done an arbitrary act prejudicial to the interests of his or her office.
I submit that the wanton abuse of traffic rules is an arbitrary act and is prejudicial to the interests of us all Ugandans and the IGG ought to interest itself in this new manifestation of abuse of office to give full effect to the philosophy behind that enactment.
The new team at police headquarters ought to urgently publish which convoy or vehicles we should give way and in which context. It should also state the justification for such a privilege.
A young Museveni refused to be ruled by Idi Amin even for one day. Fellow Ugandans, let us Stand up and refuse the harassment, and maiming of Ugandans through avoidable accidents, inconveniences by those who feed off the public purse, do not give way to un-deserving motorists.
Mr Odumu is a lawyer. [email protected]
Twitter: @Odumuokumu)
