It was then that I became convinced that commuter omnibus drivers (and their obnoxious touts) are born of the same mother. The difference is in the degree of obnoxiousness.
The experience took me back home to our brand of commuter drivers and touts in Zimbabwe — arguably the worst on the planet.
For lack of a better description, they are rude, crude, vulgar, immature, utterly corrupt and very loud. Their lack of etiquette is legendary and seeing them in their element would convince one that the sun shone from their backsides!
As I eavesdropped on the conversation, I realised that the bravado they display makes up for their serious deficit in elementary education.
The experience took me back to the days when the most reliable form of transport back home was the commuter taxi, otherwise known in those days as the emergency taxi. A bit of background will suffice at this stage.
With the steady decline of the public bus system, the Zimbabwe government was forced to look to alternatives in order to alleviate the crisis. And as the economy took a predictable nosedive, commuters found themselves having to scramble for transport.
A toxic combination of mismanagement and corruption was taking its toll on the Zimbabwe United Passenger Company (ZUPCO). For years, the backbone of the urban transport network, the company failed to put up any semblance of the organised ferrying of workers in the country. This called for a temporary solution that would allow ZUPCO to recover its former glory, a feat that would only find currency in a fairy tale.
Enter the ‘emergency’ taxi into the fray. Through the slight ‘tweaking’ of transport legislation, the government gave birth, by caesarean section, to a class of pseudo-entrepreneurs whose main brief was to take commuters from point A to point B, never mind how. They were supposed to be a stop gap measure, hence the complete absence of any standards under which they should operate.
This led to the resurrection of the most dilapidated of ramshackle contraptions that masqueraded as vehicles. In the beginning, there was the ancestor to the current kombis. They huffed and puffed around the city like the steam engines they were, ferrying passengers mostly between the high density residential areas and town.
The Commers and the Austins, with wooden benches for seats, caused untold damage to the ozone layer before they were overtaken by the ubiquitous Peugeot 404 station wagon which became the flagship of the taxi operators.
If we thought that this was progress in the transport sector, we were mistaken. The condition of the vehicles left a lot to be desired. This put them on the radar of an increasingly corrupt traffic police force. Add to the fact that in order to break even, the ‘tshovas’, as they were affectionately known, would be packed beyond redemption. These mobile coffins soon made their mark on accident statistics charts.
There used to be a saying those days that utshova is never full. At one roadblock, the police counted no less than 16 bodies crammed into one station wagon. They could have easily qualified for the Guinness Book of World Records if they applied. It can also be assumed that the cat and mouse relationship between traffic cops and emergency taxi drivers could have led to a complete breakdown of sanity in the urban transport sector.
As the tshovas deteriorated with constant abuse, so did the driver’s treatment of their passengers. The introduction of touts or ‘owindi’ made things worse. The touts were there ostensibly to make things easier for the driver who was supposed to concentrate on what he was employed to do. The role of touts was to ensure the car was full and that they collected the agreed fare from the clients.
The problem was the absence of any standard qualification for the job of a tout. Because of the need to cut costs and maximize profits, taxi drivers employed anything that the cat dragged in. The unfashionable job of a tout attracted the scum of the earth that included pickpockets, thugs, vagrants … just take your pick.
The obvious gap between commuters and touts soon led to inevitable clashes with the latter asserting authority by virtue of being able to determine who among those desperate for transport could climb on board.
If it came to the worst, an individual could be barred from boarding any other taxi just because ‘uyimbulu’ (arrogant). I won’t attempt to define ubumbulu in the eyes of a tout at this stage. That would require a whole article of its own.
But the truth be told, the power of touts rose quite alarmingly as transport woes increased. Dirty, scruffy and smelly touts soon ascended the totem pole, high enough to attract the amorous attentions of desperate women and silly schoolgirls. One can equate this phenomenon to the time when petrol attendants rose to the status of demigods at the height of fuel shortages in the country.
When the Peugeots died a natural death, the roomier and far smarter kombis took their place. One would have assumed that the drivers and their touts would clean up their act. Not on your life! The situation became worse as competition for passengers reached desperate proportions.
Unsuspecting commuters were lured into the kombis by seemingly polite touts only to be verbally and sometimes physically abused once inside. The police made things worse by soliciting for bribes at unofficial ‘tollgates’ dotted around the city raising tempers even further. Whatever the police levied on the drivers, it would be magnified on the passengers in the form of maltreatment.
The touts were willing accomplices in terrorising their clients. Sadly enough, no amount of complaining to the owners and the authorities has ever solved the problem. Attempts by government to arrest the rot have hit a brick wall.
It’s a social problem, says one analyst, and there are many of them in Zimbabwe. One in two people are analysts. It is a form of survival mechanism. As long as people rely on commuter transport, passengers will find themselves at the mercy of the drivers and touts.
No amount of evangelising or complaining will ever erase the problem. Unless of course the economy picks up, the government reverts to its responsibilities of providing and facilitating proper, affordable transportation.
In the meantime, commuters risk life and limb each time they step into a commuter omnibus. If the vehicle is in good condition, they do not have to imagine how it feels like to ride in a Formula One racing car. Never mind the fact that some roads in Zimbabwe have potholes big enough for one to plant a baobab tree, these drivers can do anything short of taking off like a jet fighter.
The vulgarity of commuter taxi drivers and touts is the stuff of legend. At one point I was convinced that for one to be employed, being able to deliver 100 swear words per minute was a must, that and the ability to swing a wheel spanner. By the way, I don’t think possessing a valid driver’s licence was absolutely necessary.
1 comment:
Mhlanga the taxi crews back home r angels compared to those operating here in KwaZulu Natal.This side u risk being shot dead for arguing with them or for boarding a rival taxi during the ever ongoing taxi wars.Taxi bosses known as Osomataxi employ heavily armed hitmen to get rid of competitors,and when these hitmen(IZINKABI) strike they take out the whole taxi including the poor passengers.
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