Jinja, Uganda | URN | Police in Jinja city has impounded 16 vehicles whose owners are accused of using fake essential workers’ stickers, and forging movement permits to enable them travel to different destinations, despite the current ban on transport.
Eleven vehicles were impounded along Nile bridge, whereas five others were tracked down along the Jinja-Iganga highway.
It is reported that most of the suspects were using mainly health workers and courier services movement permit stickers.
Intelligence information indicates that occupants of these vehicles were never linked to those purported organizations, which sparked off the operation.
After being tipped off on the ongoing operations, some drivers who had illegally pinned the essential workers stickers on their vehicles, opted to pluck them off and accessed the city center through alternative routes, so as to avoid police checkpoints along the major roads.
A driver who spoke on condition of anonymity says that the stickers were donated to him by a friend attached to a courier services company. “A friend of mine who is linked to a new courier services organization availed me with these stickers because I help them to transport goods to their clients in the neighboring districts, and it is not true that I forged them,” he says.
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The Kiira central acting police commander, Maurice Niyonzima says that several vehicle owners are using essential workers stickers to enable them ferry passengers from the outskirts of Jinja city to the central areas at a fee of 10,000 Shillings on a daily basis.
Niyonzima adds that the files of the suspects are being screened by the traffic police unit, which will assess the suitable express penalty fines to be paid before releasing each of the impounded vehicles now locked up in Nalufenya Police Station.
