Wilfred Arinda Nsheeka is the LC 5 Male youth councillor for Rubanda District (PHOTO/Courtesy).
RUBANDA – Traveling by bus in Uganda, especially from southwestern Uganda to Kampala, is a total nightmare. I’ve used nearly every bus company, and they’re all a disaster. The service is so bad it almost feels like the people running these buses are daring you to complain. But what choice do we have? We’re stuck with these terrible options.
The biggest frustration is the time they waste. You can get on a bus at 2 PM, and they’ll confidently tell you that it’s leaving in ten minutes. But hours later, you will wait for hours. I once tried to complain, and one staff simply told me, “If you don’t come back, what will I lose?” That’s how little they care about customers. It’s like we don’t matter. The lies they tell feel like a slap in the face, and it’s almost as if making passengers suffer is just business as usual.
And when the bus finally starts moving, things only get worse. Buses are packed more than they carry. Some days, the number of people standing is the same as those seated. It’s a dangerous mess. Traffic officers don’t care. They enter these buses, ignore the fact that there are no seatbelts, and turn a blind eye to everything. They’re more interested in other things, and it’s the passengers who are left to take all the risks.
Inside the bus, it’s like being trapped in a dirty, smelly box. The seats are so cramped, it feels like they’re designed for torture. If you’re tall, forget about sitting comfortably. They pack in as many seats as possible to make more money, with no thought for the passengers who have to endure the ride.
And when something goes wrong—like the bus breaking down—you’re completely abandoned. No compensation, no apologies, nothing. You could lose your money, your luggage, or even worse, your time, and it wouldn’t matter to them. They put up signs promising free WiFi and other amenities, but it’s all just smoke and mirrors. Meanwhile, foreign buses passing through Uganda feel like a completely different world—clean, comfortable, and actually reliable. Why can’t our buses learn from them?
What’s shocking is that the Ministry of Transport only seems to care when there’s a major accident. But what about the everyday horrors passengers face? Where is the ministry when buses are dirty, overloaded, and unsafe? Why are they always silent? It feels like nobody is watching out for us, and that’s terrifying.
The police are no better. We see the horrifying bus accidents, but nothing ever changes. How can almost 100 people die in crashes every month, and no one in power seems to care? It’s like the government is asleep on the job, and we’re the ones paying the price with our lives. It’s shameful that these issues are never even discussed in Parliament. This is a crisis, and yet the people responsible for solving it are silent.
Uganda’s bus transport system is broken beyond belief, and the people in charge of fixing it are either too corrupt or too lazy to care. The Ministry of Transport, the police, and even our MPs need to wake up. This isn’t just about bad service—it’s about people’s lives. We can’t keep dying on these buses just because of poor management and greed.
The writer, Wilfred Arinda Nshekantebirwe is the LC 5 Male Youth Councillor for Rubanda Districtwilfredarinda@gmail.com
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