Africa-Press – Uganda. Transporters in Mbarara City have tasked security to deploy heavily in public places, especially in taxi and bus parks, to protect travellers from terror attacks.
While meeting Mbarara City security committee on Wednesday, taxi and bus operators said they find it difficult to detect a suspect since they do not know what a bomb looks like.
“There are people who come like officers in the park and they do not want to be checked and because we are civilians, we do not fight with them. So we need people who are trained to be deployed in the parks because they can easily engage anybody,” Mr Godfrey Mbaine, Mbarara Taxi Park Operators Union secretary for finance, said.
The appeal follows Kampala twin bombings on Tuesday where seven people were killed and more than 30 injured.
The manager of Tausi Bus Services, Mr Iddi Kisajja, called for sensitisation.
“We are not experts in detecting explosives so security needs to deploy bomb experts in the parks to save the locals in case of any attack,” Mr Kisajja said.
The Resident City Commissioner, Lt Col James Mwesigye, banned loading of passengers from illegal stages.
“There are many illegal stages. No taxi should load passengers from ungazetted places. Whoever will be caught will have their taxi impounded,” he said.
“When you are parking everywhere, it leads to congestion and a terrorist can use that laxity to fulfill his mission so let us not give terrorists chances,” Mr Mwesigye added.
He said although the taxi and bus park have a police post, they will increase the enforcement.
Mbarara City police commander Emmanuel Bwambale ordered all the bus operators to buy metal detectors to check passengers and urged the public to be vigilant.
“Whoever is in uniform must be checked. This is a directive and where you get problems, let them inform us because terrorists have many tricks,” Mr Bwambale said.
[email protected]
For More News And Analysis About Uganda Follow Africa-Press
