By Leonard Kamugisha Akida,
NATIONAL
Since its inception in November 2014, Safe Boda has served to its peak, ferrying thousands of pillion passengers in Kampala city and metropolitan. A business that created sanity in the Boda Boda industry in urban towns of Uganda has been thriving until the COVID-19 pandemic hit throwing almost everything into a spin.
The company ably adhered to the pandemic restrictions such as working from home, frequent banning of public transport, Boda Boda carrying only lugguage within a limited time to mention but afew, for close to 2 years.
However, the bitting economy that has seen multibillion merchandise compnies exit Ugandan market could not spare Safe Boda either.
Today August 2, the over $1.3m total funding Guinness Transporter company has laid off 59 workers in what they termed as a significant and very difficult change to enable the company continue as a business.
In an E-mail sent to the laid off workers, the lay off is due to economic slow down caused by the pandemic.
“The recovery from 23 months of COVID-19 restrictions, economic slow down and challeging global capital environment have been particularly difficult to our business,” read a mail in parts.
As a result to survive and ultimately thrive, Safe Boda said they are reorganizing and narrowing.
“We have had to reduce our teams, for this we are sorry. Many great people are leaving Safe Boda,” the company noted
One of the affected employees who preferred anonymity said the decision affects different workers from all departments of Safe Boda.
“The company is not doing well, they had to take a tough decision! 59 employees were laid off today due to tough economic situations,” anonymous soure said
However, this does not affect the over 3,000 Boda Boda riders registered under safe Boda.
Furthermore, Safe Boda has commended the efforts of laid off workers towards the growth and development of the company.
“To those leaving, thank you for giving Safe Boda so much and putting possessions in everything we did. You gave energy, hustle, intelligence and professionalism. Be proud of what you achieved. You lived Safe Boda values. You will always be partof the Safe Boda community, never forget that!” Company commended
In order to keep the laid off workers relevant in the job market, the company also pledged to give hiring workshops to the employees as well as help in networking them to other suitable employers.
“Safe Boda will offer all its innerand outer community help to find everyone new opportunities. We will be running hiring workshops throughout this week to ensure everybody succeeds in their next career step,” Safe Boda assured.
Meanwhile, the company has announced that they are introducing cars in both markets to leverage the economy and provide great service to customers.
Safe Boda was founded in November 2014 in Uganda by Maxime Dieudonne, Rapa Thomson Ricky and Alastair Sussock. The company employs an estimated number of over 25,000 motorcyclists in Uganda, Nigeria and other East African countries
