Taxi Tales: Taxi, oh Taxi drivers, Where art thou uniforms?

I came into work this morning, half-expecting to see the taxi drivers, mandated to start wearing uniforms (sea-blue shirt and navy blue trousers), as of 1st February--i.e. today. Not too much to my surprise, all the taxi-drivers I saw on my way to work, and my Dad noticed a few, too, were, in effect, breaking the law.


Even if the Accra Metropolitan Assembly had botched things up with their lack of enforcibility, the decision not to wear uniforms smacks of disrespect for the law.

On my way home from work yesterday evening, where I took this picture (in part to show-case the erection of streetlights on the Spintex Road), I asked the taxi driver, driving a colleague and myself home, whether he was prepared. He sputtered out forlornly that "emi, me nshe uniform, o", or "I will not wear any uniform". That kind of gave me a taster of what to expect today, but one could hope anyway;-)

Just for good measure, here's some more about AMA:

"The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) is a corporate body and the highest political and administrative organ in Accra. The Assembly has legislative, deliberate and executive functions. Development in Accra is financed from several sources and at two (2) levels; central and local. AMA is a facilitator for development rather than profit making institution. This is consistent to central government policy. AMA spends 66.70% of its revenue on recurrent expenditure whilst 33.30% on capital expenditure. The expenditure ratio indicates low commitment of the city authority to development."
from:http://ie3global.oregonstate.edu/ie3/openings/ghana7.html

Let's see what the rest of the day will bring!

tags:
ghana taxi;taxi uniforms;accra;spintex road;