President Museveni has said boda bodas can freely operate 24 hours a day, effectively lifting restrictions on the industry that were instituted in 2020 when Covid-19 hit the country.
According to the President, whereas fully lifting the curfew on the bikes brings additional insecurity concerns, he will have solutions for this.
” Starting tomorrow at 6pm, Boda Boda riders can work trans night like all others. I know that they are some wrong elements using Boda Bodas for crimes but we shall deal with them in another way other than curfew. Resume work and contribute to your household incomes positively,” he said on Sunday, 06 February 2022.
Boda Boda is the main mode of transport in urban areas of Uganda.
Last month, the E-Trade Association, an umbrella organisation for companies such as Jumia, SafeBoda and Glovo that use the Internet in Uganda, called for the lifting of the boda boda ban after 6pm.
“There are no jobs in this country and the boda boda industry has tried to dissolve unemployment among the youth,” Ricky Rapa Thomson, SafeBoda co-founder and director, said at a press conference in Kampala on Monday, 17 January 2022.
“Bodas transport so many types of people such as officers, students, business people among others as well as commodities. Let the government help and listen to our cry. After agriculture, boda boda is the second most employing sector We can’t leave these people working at less capacity. We believe Uganda is our country, we seek the fairness,” he added.
There is no way to accurately count the number of boda boda riders in Kampala and quoted estimates from authorities range between 50,000 and 800,000. Richard Kibikwamu, the general secretary of the Kampala Central Division, Boda Boda 2010 Association, said there are approximately 200,000 boda riders and 5,000 stages in Kampala.
With the unemployment rate in Kampala hovering around 11 per cent, according to the Ugandan Bureau of Statistics, and youth unemployment even higher, hundreds of riders enter the boda boda business every day.