The Government of Uganda is planning to ban importation of cars over eight years old, according to the Traffic and Road Safety Act 1998 (Amendment) Act, 2018.
“A person shall not import a motor vehicle which is eight years old or more from the date of manufacture,” Clause 14A (1) of the draft Bill obtained by Business Focus reads.
If passed in its current form, the ban shall come into force on 1st July, 2018.
However, the ban will not apply to road tractors for semitrailers, motor vehicles for the transport of goods with a gross vehicle weight of at least six tones, special purpose motor vehicles including; breakdown lorries, crane lorries, fire fighting vehicles, concrete mixer lorries, road sweeper lorries, spraying lorries, mobile workshops, forklifts, mobile drilling rigs, mobile radiological units, works trucks, tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, cesspool emptiers, water bowser, bullion spreaders, bitumen spreaders, bucket trucks, aircraft refuellers, spraying trucks, workshop vans and mobile banks.
The ban will also not apply to agricultural or forestry tractors; earth moving motor vehicles, tamping machines and road rollers.
The ban will also exclude “motor vehicles which are in transit before the commencement of this Act and which arrive in Uganda by 30th September, 2018.”
Clause 14B of the Bill prepared by Eng. Monica Azuba Ntege, the Minister of Works and Transport adds that a person who imports a motor vehicle which is five years old or more from the date of manufacture shall pay an environmental levy on that vehicle.
“The environmental levy shall be collected by the Uganda Revenue Authority before clearance of the motor vehicle,” the Bill says.
Uganda has less than one million cars, of which old cars form the biggest percentage.
