Uber suspends its services in Uganda

Part of TECHJAJA’S GUIDE TO WORKING FROM HOME

To protect the safety and well-being of our community, Uber Uganda is suspending all it’s services during the 14 day ban of all public movement.

This comes as a logical step after H.E President Yoweri Museveni on March 30, 2020 announced that there will be a restriction of all movement within Uganda for a period of 14 days. Based on this directive, Uber will temporarily cease operations of UberX and UberBODA for the period of the lock-down, subject to any further government announcements. Previously only Uber X services was working as there no total lock-down.

- Advertisement -

The president thought it wise not to take any risk by being complacent and assuming that everybody took heed when many may have not taken heed of his previous directive. That is why he decided to prohibit all people to people movement by everybody including those using their private vehicles, bodabodas, tuk-tuks, etc. 

He gave two reasons;

Some private car owners had turned their cars into taxis, transporting the two people they had permitted, assuming that they would be members of one’s family, when in fact they were passengers being charged the exorbitant fare of UGX 50,000/- from Kampala to Jinja.  Hence, the problem they were trying to cure of allowing the mixing of people from different sources was not being addressed. Instead, it was taking new forms.  The people with private cars were now the new public transporters without licenses and facilitating the dangerous mixing in the process. 

Secondly, even more importantly, even if the private car owners had been disciplined and only moved around with only the two members of their families, still that movement would be dangerous because they do not know who has the virus know and who does not, given the penetration of the imported cases into the society, short-lived though it may have been. 

The ban on privately owned passenger vehicles will took effect from 2200 hours (Ten O’clock ), on 30^th of March, 2020 and since all Uber drivers own these cars, they had to temporarily close business. The president stressed that he would have given the public time to adjust but on a more scientific study, it was found that this would be a wrong policy. A longer time would give people time to try and go to the villages. In so doing, they may transfer the coronavirus.

This freezing of movement will last 14 days from the 1^st of April, 2020 and after it is lifted, Uber services will be up and running again.