Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) has started issuing computerised stickers to commuter taxis in the central business district of Kampala. They have so far printed 4000 stickers of which 200 are distributed on a daily basis, KCCA Spokes person Peter Kaujju said.
“The stickers are issued to town clerks who work with taxi stage managers to roll out to only those operators who fully clear the monthly charge of Ushs 120,000 to the authority,” Kaujju explained.
The stickers will serve to provide real-time collection of revenue through use of mobile payments. KCCA Executive Director Jennifer Musisi said that attaining the Authority objectives in revenue collection requires state of art technology to make it worthy and useful to manage payments. This was while unveiling the arrangement in Kampala
“There was a lot of forgery of receipts and drivers claiming that they had paid to KCCA officials. The stickers will be easily detected by use of special mobile phones,” Musisi said.
Computerised sticker gives information on the commuter taxi, its owner, registers the stages of operation and will also be able to give feedback to KCCA on which vehicle has been impounded and has not been on the streets.
Kaujju said that mere scanning the sticker makes it unattainable to make forgeries in details behind sticker barcode.
“Every registered Taxi is entitled to a sticker. Taxi registration is done at KCCA offices and respected places for sticker collection,” noted Kaujju.
In the verification process, revenue enforcement officers scan a sticker and the mobile phone displays payment history for a Taxi and any balance in real time.
In February last year, KCCA introduced a new payment system that required taxi operators to pay a monthly fee of Ushs 155,000 ($ 57.4) for taxi operators, shortly after taking over management of the city’s public transport from the Uganda Taxi Owners and Drivers Association (UTODA).
Credit: Business Week