By Julius Mugaga Tukacungurwa/Umoja Standard.
RESEARCH: Following the enactment of the Traffic and Road Safety (Amendment) Act 2018, on May 31, 2018, Ugandan government banned cars that are older than fifteen years from entering the boarders of the country effective September 2018).
The Act went on to extend the age of cars exempted environmental levy from five to now eight years which directly shifts the environmental levy burden to older cars that now amounts to fifty per cent of the total vehicle’s value.
Starting July 1, 2023, Ugandan government will not allow any importation of cars that older than 15 years in a bid to bring down environmental pollution.A vehicle that manufactured in 2008 is the oldest that can be imported into the country this year based on the new 15-year age limit. But newer cars, for instance those manufactured in 2010 onwards, are more expensive to buy from overseas markets such as Japan and attract higher taxes than brand new ones.
Ugandan Daily, The Monitor landed on a report tilted: ‘The State of Ambient Air Quality’, compiled by a team led by Dr Bruce, and discovered that as you enter the city on Masaka road, you are likely to find a high concentration of waste gases around Nateete polluted more than areas such as Naguru and Kololo.
As well as government considers this move as a solution to slowing pollution levels in Kampala, there are other several factors that fuel levels of pollution in Kampala.
According to smartairfilters.com, Kampala PM2. 5 air quality averaged 50.4 micrograms in 2022. This means, Kampala PM2. 5 concentration exceeded the WHO annual limit of 5.0 micrograms by over 10 times.
On the most polluted day, Kampala air quality exceeded the recommended limit by over 27 times.
During 2022, 92% of days exceeded the WHO annual limit. 8% of days fell within the safe limit of 5 micrograms. That means outdoor air in Kampala was considered safe for just 1 in 12 days during 2022.
Far back in 2019, IQAir website published that, the capital city of Uganda, Kampala, was recorded as having a PM2.5 reading of 29.1 μg/m³ as its yearly average, a reading that placed it into the higher end of the ‘moderate’ pollution bracket, which requires a PM2.5 reading of anywhere between 12.1 to 35.4 μg/m³ to be classified as such.
PM2.5 refers to particulate matter that is 2.5 micrometres or less in diameter, going down to sizes as small as 0.001 microns and beyond. This incredibly small size, coupled with the constituents of what make up fine particulate matter, make it incredibly dangerous to human health when respired. This has caused PM2.5 to be used as one of the major components in the calculation of the overall quality of air, along with other prominent pollutants such as PM10, Ozone and nitrogen dioxide.
Speaking to Associate Professor Lynn Atuyambe from Makerere University School of Public Health stated that stopping of old cars importation in Uganda will contribute a lot towards reduction of ambient air pollution in Kampala.
“We know from our data that vehicular or vehicle related air pollution is very much in the city. In the morning time the is a lot of air pollution- (we measure it in Particulate Matter 2.5, PM2.5) “. Prof. Atuyambe.
“In the morning time, there is much more air pollution concentration is too high between 9am and starts rising at 3pm when they picking children to go home up to around 9pm and in the night it is not very low because some factories manufacture in the night and because of low temperatures the ambient air pollution which would have otherwise because of warm temperatures spread and taken away by wind is compressed down to the surface of the earth which is not safe”. Added Prof. Atuyambe.
In his view Prof. Atuyambe was in support of banning importation of old cars. ‘what should be done is ensuring zero tolerance to importation of old cars and even check those that are within because in Kenya I think they have up to 5 years, are they not managing?, to me I think they should be 8 years not 15years and if not possible keep the 15years but each year keep on reducing’.
“According to our monitoring station at Makerere University School of Public Health, in the last 4 years, it is about 40µg/m3 outdoor air pollution concentration now for indoor it is about 80µg/m3 from the recent study we’ve done meaning that Kampala households are more polluted which may cause heart diseases like pulmonary related disease”. Prof Atuyambe.
He stated that World Health organization recommend and goes on to give interim targets (target 1,2,3,4) but for Uganda we haven’t achieved even target one.
Target one is 31µg/m3, target two is 25µg/m3, target three is 15µg/m3 and target four is 10µg/m3.
He emphasized that if banning of old vehicles is well affected, Ugandans would go on and plant trees and others.
Associate Professor Lynn Atuyambe informed that according to the current statistics about 1200 every die as a result of pollution related diseases alone.
Kampala, Uganda’s capital home of over two million people, ranks among the world’s most polluted cities, with pollution levels up to seven times higher than the World Health Organisation’s safe standards, according to the 2021 World Air Quality Report.
Uganda as a country has many different sources of pollution, typically compounding each other as they all occur, leading to the heightened levels of PM2.5 on record. A majority of them would arise from combustion sources, and these along have many different causes, each with their own unique polluting footprint.
Other issues stem from areas or sites that release large amounts of fine particulate matter, leading to massive build-ups of dust and finely ground gravel or silica that can cause severe damage to the health of those who are exposed over lengths of time.