The security Minister Gen Elly Tumwine, says history and Covid 19, have demonstrated that internet and boda boda services are luxuries which Ugandans can live without because of the danger they pose to the country.
Addressing members of the e-trade association at his office in Kampala on Thursday, Gen Tumwine, said bodas boda, food delivery and internet services are innovations initiated “just yesterday” and they are becoming a threat to the public and yet previously, “we have lived without them and stayed safe.”
“I can now tell you that all these things you think are important, are not. History and Covid have shown that we can do without travel and stay safe. You can do without internet; it came yesterday. Safe boda is just coming, even boda bodas are recent; they are of yesterday. We have been living without food being delivered,” he said.
He explained that government would rather close businesses like the internet and boda boda services because they had proved a threat to national security as wrong elements had started taking advantage of them to blackmail government and promote crime ahead of the just concluded elections.
On Thursday, members of the e-trade association of Uganda comprising of companies that offer services via the internet met the Security minister to request the government to relax some of the Covid- 19 restrictions like curfew which were imposed when the virus pandemic broke out last year, because of the way they have been affected. The Associations represented included the Uganda Tourism Association, Jumia Uganda, Safe Boda and Tugende and the Restaurant Association of Uganda.
