President Yoweri Museveni has insisted that the digital motor number plates project must go on as planned, saying it will be very vital in fighting crime in Uganda.
“Now, I’m insisting on the issue of electronic number plates; It will be a very big blow to crime because most of the people move to and from the scene of crime by either a vehicle or a boda boda,” said Museveni.
Museveni noted that if the crime gap is closed through the use of digital number plates, it will be very difficult for criminals to do what they are doing now because walking to and from the crime scene will not be a walk in the park.
“All those arguments which are going on should come down and the project be done so that the issue is resolved,” he emphasized.
The CCTV cameras and the fingerprinting of the guns of the security forces are also helping in fighting crime but I hear they were not included in the army. I direct all the army guns must be fingerprinted like all the others. They can be kept separately may be under military police but every gun must be fingerprinted,” he added.
New vehicle and motorcycle owners will be pay shs714,000 for the the digital number plates while already registered road users will be required to pay shs150,000 and shs50,000 for vehicles and motorcycles.
The Intelligent Transport Monitoring System (ITMS) is to be implemented in a phased manner and will be managed by Joint Stock Company Global Security for 10 years, before it is handed over to government.
He added that a financial model covering the total investment of the Intelligent Transport Monitoring System, including selling number plates and traffic fines, informed the pricing of the new digital number plates.
“Even when it was not a security issue, government had already started initiating a new regime of replacing these number plates. Here we have a total solution where the number plate has a tracker for security purposes,” said Katushabe.
