The moral ambiguity that comes with not asking questions in a situation where the wrong thing is clearly being done is an article of the average Ghanaian's application of the law.
From tro-tros using the shoulder in traffic, to using illegal routes on the Tema motorway, you would be hard-pressed finding a Ghanaian who has not over-looked wrong-doing.
I am no exception!
Last Friday evening, I joined three others in a shared taxi to the Spintex Road--except that it was not a taxi. This taxi was a private-registered car, meaning that it had white number plates. This is one of the the beauties of commuting in Ghana--knowing how to identify either a private or commercial (yellow plate) car. I must confess that the car was rather comfortable, which is atypical to the usually-shared taxi that plies the Tema/Fridays/Baatsona route every day!
I, like the other three, said nothing because we all wanted to get home on time. We didn't call him--he did.
How could we have refused an offer like that?
And so the ambiguity continues...
4 comments:
Interesting dilemma. Yet I'm not sooo convinced that what you all engaged in was illegal. The way I see it: a man was heading home on the Spintex Road on Friday night, he decided to help out 4 people who were waiting for taxis that were not appearing.Being a good Samaritan and providing lifts may have meant he had to go further along the Spintex Road than his final destination. So he decided to ask the people he was giving a ride to for a token amount each to recuperate on the fuel costs! The token amount happened to be the same as what taxi driver's charge (who would have thought?)!
"Informal" taxi-ing was the norm for long distance journeys in Gabon when I was there last year Seems to also be popular in Botswana for long and short distances.
No, this is not the owner heading home, I'm quite sure. It's actually quite common outside of the Accra-Kumasi world where taxis are plentiful. It's known as "running trotro." A driver is sent to pick someone or drop someone, and while the car is empty he decides to make a little extra chop money on the way.
You got home, right? Not thought through the implications of lost tax revenue to the State as yet, but once you got home, you made the right choice. Sorry Mr Commissioner of Tax. :-)
Abena--Thanks for your insight, but I am with John Schaefer when he writes that the guy was/is a driver "running tro-tro":-) Your experiences in Gabon and Botswana can only suggest that it's a typically African thing?
As regards the morality, the reason why I felt guilty was because that he charged made null and void his good "samaritanness", as it were:-))
John--totally agree with you; perhaps I was unclear in the entry, but that's exactly what I felt about the driver. I have seen those that are really good samaritans just decided to drop you--without taking a penny! This scenario had something uncomfortable about it...
Nana Yaw--too right I got home! But as indicated earlier, it was too bloggable an experience I couldn't resist making sure I took note of the whole elements of a juicy true story. On a more serious note, you don't get this anywhere but in Africa; sure better than bank-robbery, but doesn't make it right. I'm no stranger to illegalities, but being the change you want to be somehow is inhibited in a world where you spend more time trying to get a cab home, and therefore have to compromise that attitude to get home!!
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