270 driving permits fraudulently issued at UDLS

By Lydia Igwee

Kampala-Uganda/Newsday: About 270 driving permits have been fraudulently issued by the Uganda Driver Licensing System, an entity mandated with the scrutiny and issuance of driving licences.

Charles Twine, The Criminal Investigations Directorate spokesperson has said that several employees of the company are conniving with applicants to issue permits to persons who have not gone through the laid out procedures.

It is against this background that the police arrested the Supervisor Uganda Driver Licensing System in Kampala region Johnsen Sserwadda, as the prime suspect in the racket.

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Police said Sserwadda has been charging between 500,000 and 700,000 to issue driving permits to those who approach him.

According to Police, Sserwada used introductory letters from non-existing driving schools and non-existing medical forms to show that the applicants had met all the requirements for securing the permits, even without being tested.

Twine explains that by the time of his arrest Sserwadda, had fraudulently processed over 270 permits to people and now, police are working with the licensing company to ensure that all these people are called back and go through the process of testing.

“These are valid driving permits, but fraudulently processed. This is a danger, it’s a time bomb, our people will be driven by people who were not tested and a lot of fatalities will be registered, we want all these people called back and go through normal procedures, we want to hear reduction of accidents on roads but not the rise every day. Twine further noted.

According to records from the Directorate of Traffic and Road Safety at least 229 people perished in 1,407 road accidents recorded last month.

Faridah Nampiima, the Traffic Directorate Spokesperson, said that the accidents which mostly emanated from reckless driving also resulted in serious and minor injuries to 1,054 people.  She said that the accidents shot up last month compared to records of the same month in previous years because drivers and riders have continued driving beyond prescribed speed limits.