01 Jul 2014

One blissful morning, Mr Albert Ditsile woke up to realise that paradise was not to be found anywhere near his bed.

The more hours he spent on his bed, the more he realised that it was a passage to life on the brink of starvation. During that day of mediation, the only thing dominant in Mr Ditsile’s mind, was to ply a taxi in the Gabane-Gaborone route.

To him, that was a well-executed step to good tidings. Alas, that was never to be. Years after his dedicated service to the route, Mr Ditsile, who is now the route manager, realised that all his thinking was not even close to reality.

“You can wait for about four to five hours without passengers boarding, there is absolutely no business at all,” he said adding “when things are really bad, taxi operators end the day with only peanuts.”

The situation is compounded by the fact that taxis have to go for roadworthy tests, hence they are expected to be in a sound state in an unprofitable business.

“We have to pop out money from our pockets for them to be fixed before they undergo a test,” another concerned driver, Mr Selepe Moabi said.

Mr Moabi said the fact that visually impaired people do not pay for public transport was devastating and contributed to loss-making. “I don’t see the reason why visually impaired people with jobs should not pay whereas a lot of jobless people do pay, the department of transport should look into this,” he said.

While the unprofitability of the Gabane-Gaborone route may seem to be the major challenge faced by the taxi industry in Gabane, the fact is, it is only a portion of the problem. Over the years, the Gabane-Gaborone taxi operators used a place near the Gabane-Go-Nku junction as a rank. With no designated car parking, all of the 104 taxis have to fight for space which was initially designed to be a taxi stop.

The area has no toilets. The situation is worsened by the taxi operators’ refusal to relocate to the proposed taxi rank, less than 1.5 km from the congested spot. They could have relocated four months ago.

“For a long time we have complained about the bad state of the new bus rank in the village,” he said. Just like the current state, the new area has no lights, no ablution blocks and no shelter, and its street is not tarred. “We are not moving from here anytime soon,” Mr Ditsile said. “They must first address our grievances.”

While the idea of the council is to afford the taxi industry better service such as parking space, Mr Ditsile does not think so. “We value our lives and that of our customers, we cannot risk relocating because that place will attract criminals,” he added.

However, Mr Ditsile thinks that crime was often committed by some passengers. For instance, some taxis have graffiti inscribed by customers while some have been damaged.

This is in addition to the usual dirt such as diapers, empty cans, plastics as well as unruly behaviour. All this have built a strong case for him not to trust all customers.

Nevertheless, he knows that a customer is king, hence he wakes up every day to ferry the ‘king’ to its destination.

According to him, the standoff between them and the council would be permanently addressed if the council would give Gabane infrastructure development the attendance it deserves.

Kgosi Sello Pule of Gabane agrees that the council failed to deliver its promises to the taxi operators. He said that during their last stakeholders meeting the council promised to clear rubbles at the new taxi rank, something that has not been done. “Taxis could have moved to the new rank in April, but the place is still in a shameful state,” he said.

However, site clearing was going on when we visited the proposed taxi rank. Kgosi Pule said there was need for most of the roads in the village to be tarred so that investors would find Gabane attractive.

“Infrastructure such as poor internal roads do not support any business operation,” he said. With the current standoff, Gabane taxis have continued to ply their trade from the congested area. ENDS