With the petroluem prices affecting everyone, I have to state how utterly disgusted I am by the antics of taxis. How is it that they get to charge such arbitrary prices. How is it that on my way to work today, I was charged 25 thousand cedis (that's almost 2.5 Euros) from the junction at Goil on the Spintex Road to place of work, near Miklin Hotel. And when I told him that it was expensive, he said "oh, you can pay".
"Is it you who is paying?" I shot back.
He chuckled, but I yielded, considering it was raining, and I was running late.
Someone really has to yank their chain sometime. I get particularly pissed at this knowing that yesterday--only yesterday!--I paid 20 thousand cedis, yet that was even down the road from where I live.
So who was under-charging who, then?
To say nothing of taxis near the "station" at the Spintex road corner.
They exude power to such an extent that they can decide for themselves when they want to take you. They will tell you explicitly that they want "a dropping". This basically means that they want to charter you from A to B,and you and you alone--no-one else. This translates to more money.
Yet, they know that many--actually the majority of--people prefer to share the costs of paying with someone.
When is someone going to fix a standard price over these accidental apologists of government who claim that they have a statutory right to raise fares (and do so without compunction for the masses)? Surely the government cannot do it since the taxis are owned by private people.
So we are left for them to continue cheating us...
till we all start buying cars of our own, which will compound the congestion problem further.
Lesser of two evils, huh?
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