Ugandans Want Mandatory Vehicle Inspection Deal Given To Them Instead Of A Foreign Company

Ugandans under the Uganda Motor Industry Association want motor inspection contract given to them instead of giving it to Swiss based firm, Societe Generale De Surveillance (SGS).

The Association whose members claimed that they have heard that government wants to review the contract of SGS in regards to motor vehicle inspection recently petitioned speaker Rebecca Kadaga and expressed interest in performing the vehicle mandatory inspection, arguing that they have the capacity and do not understand why government should give preferential treatment to a foreign company.

In response, Kadaga directed the Minister of Trade, Industries and Cooperatives, Amelia Kyambadde to advise Parliament on request by the Uganda Motor Industry Association to carry out motor inspection in the country in fulfillment of the local content policy, Buy Uganda Build Uganda (BUBU).

The Speaker asked Kyambadde to advise parliament on the matter so that they can see how Ugandans can benefit from this arrangement.

“I received a petition from Uganda Motor Industry Association; they are taking issues with the Government decision to review the contract of SGS, relating to motor vehicle inspection. The Uganda Motor Industry has an association of 10 members and they are stating that they have the capacity to do inspection and that actually they are all owned by indigenous Ugandans,” said Kadaga.

The Speaker added:  “So they don’t see why Government is giving preferential treatment to foreign companies when the same work can be done by Ugandans. I hope that the Minister of Trade will be able to come and advise us on the way forward and see how Ugandans can benefit from this arrangement.”

In July 2017, Speaker Kadaga ordered Parliament’s Committee of Physical Infrastructure to investigate circumstances under which Government awarded a contract to SGS to carry out mandatory vehicle inspection.

Kadaga’s directive was in response to a matter raised by Johnson Muyanja (Mukono County South) MP, who called for the halting and extension of the July 31st 2017 deadline for vehicle inspection, pending scrutiny of the contract by Parliament.

But Monica Azuba Ntege, then Minister of Works and Transport protested the scrutiny into SGS’s contract saying the mandatory vehicle inspection was geared towards curbing on road carnage that stand at 1,500 deaths annually, saying the road carnage on Ugandan roads was due to the poor mechanical condition of vehicles in Uganda.

Nevertheless, Parliament probed the contract and faulted the Ministry of Works for failing to appoint a team dedicated to monitoring the works of SGS, but instead left the supervisory role on Ronald Amanyire, senior Inspector of Vehicles at the Ministry, an omission that saw SGS walk away without paying the 10% concessional fees meant to be paid to Government since there was no team to monitor SGS’s revenue collections.

During the probe, Solicitor General, Francis Atoke admitted that he didn’t draw the contract between the Works Ministry and SGS but simply perused and later approved the contract.

The contract provides for SGS walking away with 90% of the funds collected, to enable the investor to recover the USD12.5M the purportedly invested in the business.

Parliament also discovered that in their bid documents, although SGS promised to construct eight stations in the first 18months, only Kawanda station was complete within the specified period and in the two and half years that SGS had been operation, there is no evidence of minutes of the implementation team supervising SGS and its work.