By Mulengera Reporters
Fearless lawyer Stanley Oketcho says that the ITMS arrangement, under which the new EPS Penalties system is being implemented while making motorists pay colossal sums of money, was from the very inception shrouded in total illegality & conspiracy against the Ugandan people.
Speaking at Uganda Law Society (ULS) weekly Baraza on Thursday in Kamwokya, Oketcho said that by using the Intelligent Transport Monitoring System (ITMS) to provide a monopoly business in favor of the Russian firm (Joint Stock Company Global Security/JSCGS, the Museveni government breached Ugandan laws which unequivocally prohibit monopolistic tendencies.
He added that the resultant monopoly in favor of the Russian firm had the effect of killing off Sir Gordon Wavamunno’s GM Tumpeco and other native-owned companies which had for decades been involved in making number plates for all vehicles in Uganda.
He says the new system introduces a lot of surveillance & in the process breach privacy rights for the people of Uganda yet the same is well protected under the 1995 Constitution. He also says the ITMS/EPSAuto operations also breach protection rights against dehumanizing treatment which the Constitution prohibits under Article 24. Oketcho called on Courts of law and lawyers to fearlessly stand up to the GoU and call it out for its insensitivity as opposed to accepting being cowed by what he called a cabal of powerful actors.
He also questioned the revenue-sharing formula under the ITMS and thanked the minority MPs who wrote a minority report while objecting to its operationalization. Speaking immediately after Police Counsel Pamela Kentaro who had defended the EPS intervention in order to tame over speeding, reduce on the road carnage & make roads safer, Oketcho also thanked the ULS President Isaac Semakadde who saw it coming and raised a red flag as early as 2021.
He said that Semakadde used his Legal Brain Trust, based along Bombo Road on Teachers House, and instructed his (Oketcho’s) law firm to file a case challenging the whole thing called ITMS, which they did in 2021.
He said that by going ahead to implement ITMS & subsequently the EPS, before the Court case had been disposed of, the Museveni government committed clear breaches against the subjudice rule, according to which the whole thing should have been halted until when all the outstanding court disputes had been resolved. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
