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UNEASY RIDE

A common complaint of taxi users in the country is that not many cabbies start the meter when ferrying a commuter and instead insist on charging a lump sum. Interestingly, state-run transport giant Mowasalat, which operates Karwa taxis, says the ride for a commuter is free if the meter has not been switched on or is not working for some reason. Ironically, though, the company that operates some 2,000 taxis has done little to raise awareness about this rule and the result is that some of its taxi drivers exploit people’s ignorance about the regulation to their advantage. So, commuters are either forced to pay up a lump sum as fare or there is a verbal exchange or often a scuffle. Incidents are galore where women commuters have been bullied by some drivers after dark to cough up more money. Even male commuters are coerced into paying more and some cases have recently been reported to police. Mowasalat and the other private companies that operate taxis get customer complaints about the bad behaviour of their drivers on a regular basis but whether action is taken is not known. Mowasalat officials were not immediately available for comment but they told a local Arabic daily sometime ago that if their internal probe based on a customer complaint proved that a cabbie was at fault, he could even be dismissed. That’s in the rule book, but whether a driver has ever been fired and sent packing home is not known. The company instead blames commuters for falling prey to bullying cabbies and paying the fare even when the meter has not been used. Drivers also have their share of woes and, prima facie, it appears that it is the system under which they work that forces many to violate rules and exploit commuters. One company forces its drivers to pay a minimum of QR265 for an 11-hour shift, and petrol is free. A driver can pocket whatever he makes over QR265. Drivers say it’s hard for them to make QR265 each day, as there isn’t enough business all days of the week. “Sometimes we have to pay the company from our pockets,” said a cabbie not wanting his name in print as that would offend his employers. Another taxi company asks its drivers to pay QR235 a day but then they must buy the petrol. “It’s a tough call,” a cabbie from this company said, narrating similar woes as the previous taxi driver. The third taxi operator pays a monthly salary of around QR2,500-2,600, but then the minimum number of kilometres a cabbie must cover in a month is 10,000, which most cabbies say is an uphill task. Another major customer complaint against drivers is that most don’t speak English, and those knowing Arabic can literally be counted on one’s fingers. Many don’t know the routes as they are new here. The result is that instead of a cabbie taking a commuter to a place he wishes to go, it is the latter who must guide him to his destination. Often, a commuter is new and doesn’t know the place so he ends up paying double the fare as the taxi would keep detouring. Most sufferers are people who come here on tourist or business visas. “Most cabbies not knowing English or not having the global positioning system in their taxis that would guide them to places have tourists relying on taxi services in problems. This is affecting tourism promotion,” said a travel and tourism industry source. But taxi companies insist they provide training to newly recruited drivers before they are allowed to take to the road. One company says it provides orientation to freshly-arrived cabbies for as many as four months. Given that the population of the country is 1.94 million and the number of taxis is 3,000, there is one cab for every 647 people. The figure looks impressive but what makes the taxi business challenging is that private cars are no less than a million, and there are innumerable illegal private taxis operating on the sly, and a vast majority of the population consists of low-income foreign workers who either prefer state-run bus services or rely on share taxis during weekends. In addition, there are limousine services. Sources say that despite a crackdown by authorities, illegal private taxis have been thriving, albeit they seem to have changed their strategy and way they operated earlier. It’s hard to get an illegal private taxi on the road, which was the case earlier, as a number of operators have recently been rounded up by law enforcement officials from the Doha International Airport and major shopping centres. Most illegal taxi operators now have their fixed clientele and only cater to them and would not trust strangers. Users insist they find illegal private taxi operators more reliable than cabbies. THE PENINSULA

Action against erring cabbies sought

By Fazeena Saleem DOHA: Many commuters are demanding that taxi operator Mowasalat take strict action against its drivers who violate rules. They have also criticised it for not responding properly to their complaints against taxi drivers. Some passengers say they do not know if their complaints are heeded or simply ignored. Others are of the opinion that it is better to complain to the police rather than give a written complaint to the taxi operators. Complaints to Karwa, Al Million and Alijarah taxi companies have to be made through the Mowasalat website. But some commuters complain by calling their hotlines or by email. The majority of them have complained about cabbies demanding more money, refusing to switch on the meter and refusing to take passengers to certain destinations. The Mowasalat website has a page for receiving comments, complaints and suggestions from passengers. It is mandatory for the passengers to give their name, email id and phone number and limit the complaint to 100 words. “I have made two complaints to Mowasalat. But they didn’t even acknowledge the complaints. I have no clue whether they took them into consideration or just ignored them,” said a safety engineer who usually hires a taxi when his car is not available. “We have the right to know what happens to our complaints,” he added. An employee of a popular food chain said he had called the Al Million hotline to register a complaint but was asked to file a written complaint, yet he had not received any response. “They just ask us to make a formal complain, but I think no action is taken.” “When I told the taxi driver that I would complain against him, he didn't take it seriously. It can be because they know that no action would be taken,'' he added. Ali Bahzad, director of the Taxi and Limousine Department at Mowasalat, recently said that they receive 200 complaints every day but are unable to take action because details like the taxi’s number and the place, date and time of the incident are not mentioned. “If the passenger has not given accurate details and if they are serious about taking action, they can easily contact them because all their details are mentioned in the complaint,” said a passenger who has once made a complaint to Mowasalat. ''I think it’s better to log a police complaint about taxi drivers because we can at least be sure that the issue would be looked into,'' said a passenger, referring to a recent news item published in The Peninsula about a cabbie being jailed for one month. ''Complaints should be made to the police at least in serious situations,'' suggested a bank employee, who too has had several bad experiences with cabbies, especially their refusal to go by the meter. It is learnt that complaints against the cabbies are mostly taken lightly. In most cases, they are just asked to give a verbal explanation. They get a warning letter or get suspended from work for three days if it is a police complaint. “When the company receives a complaint, we are called for an explanation. A warning is given if there are many complaints against us, but if it is serious, such as a police case, usually the driver is suspended from work for three days,’’ said a taxi driver, requesting anonymity. Taxi drivers are given training on the routes and rules before they start work. Karwa usually gives six months of training, but Al Million and Alijarah provide only a few days of training and the drivers are given a fact sheet detailing traffic rules and information about the daily rent and working hours. THE PENINSULA

More taxis, more problems

By Raynald C Rivera DOHA: When the taxis of two private companies recently hit Doha’s roads, commuters thought it would help solve the transportation problems here, particularly the scarcity of taxis. They did not expect the situation to get worse with the additional taxis. The introduction of the private taxi companies was welcomed by the public because many believed competition would mean better services and cheaper rates; however, that was not to be. With the coming of the new taxi companies the number of cabs plying on the city’s streets has increased by 50 percent, from 2,000 Karwa taxis to 3,000 as Al Million and Alijarah were allowed to operate 500 taxis each. Recently, Mowasalat allowed the two companies to operate 150 additional taxis each, and by the end of next month, a third private company is expected to commence operations with 300 taxis. The problem now is not lack of taxis but unscrupulous drivers who try to cheat or coerce passengers to get more money from them. “You are lucky if you find one honest taxi driver nowadays as most of them have devised their own way of cheating customers to earn some extra bucks,” said Lina, an aggrieved expatriate who recently decided to hire an illegal cab on a regular basis as she finds it cheaper and more reliable than taxis. She is just one of many commuters who face similar problems as they travel to and from work every day and who, like the taxi drivers, toil to provide for their families back home with their hard-earned money. For low- and middle-income expatriates in Qatar, every riyal counts, but many times they are made to pay extra for taxi rides by dishonest taxi drivers. While some drivers manipulate the meters, others don’t switch them on and instead bargain with the passengers to their advantage. There are also those who don’t reset the meter after a trip, making the next passenger pay more. Taxi drivers justify their deceitful ways by pointing out what they say are unfair conditions set by their companies, including low wages and the big amount they have to pay their company from their takings. “I have to give QR265 to the company after 11 hours of work,” said Sudheer, a Karwa driver who works on rental basis. He does not receive a salary and has to make sure he earns more than QR265 every day to have something left for himself. There are days when he is fortunate to meet his target, he said, but on lean days he is not able to reach his quota, and rarely does he exceed it. “I have to send QR1,300 a month to my family back in my country -- enough to sustain them for a month -- as my wife doesn’t have a job,” he said, adding that he wished he could return to his home country, but finding remunerative work there had become difficult. Many of his colleagues, he said, had already left the country because they could not cope with the situation. Driven by the need to meet his target for the day and provide for his family, he admits tricking his customers, setting the meter to the night time rate or that for places outside Doha, which increases his daily income by 50 percent. Mowasalat has set uniform taxi fares for all the three operators: the daytime rate in Doha is QR1.2 for every kilometre and the night and out of Doha rate is QR1.8/km. “I don’t choose which taxi to take because there is really no difference when it comes to the fare. I expected the new taxi companies to offer more choice to everyday commuters like me, but it appears there is really no competition among the taxi operators,” said an Asian expatriate. The Mowasalat management had earlier said that allowing private taxi firms to operate here reflected Mowasalat’s desire to promote healthy competition in the industry, provide more options to customers and improve the quality of the taxi service. However, this is not happening, many say. A senior official of the state-owned transport company once said more taxis could solve the problem of illegal taxis operating in the city. However, many of these illegal taxis ply the streets of Doha because a lot of people prefer them to the poor services and high fare of the three operators. “I don’t understand why the taxi fare in Doha is so high when petrol is so cheap compared to our country, and the drivers deceiving passengers makes the cost of transportation here impossible to bear,” said an Asian expatriate. Many a time, Karwa drivers were not bothered when a customer threatened to report them to the management, saying they worked on rental basis and could do as they wished, he added. The situation is virtually the same for Al Million drivers, as the driver must give the company QR235 at the end of his shift and, according to one driver, it is they who pay for the petrol. “My monthly salary is QR1,200 and that is not enough as I have to spend for food and other basic needs and send money to my family,” the driver said, adding that it was difficult to earn QR235 a day as he sometimes came across bad customers. Many customers, he said, preferred not to go by the meter and bargained for a lower fare. There had also been instances of customers, especially young boys, just running away without paying the fare, he said. To make both ends meet, some drivers do part-time jobs. “One time I helped during the National Day celebrations and was paid QR150,” said an Alijarah taxi driver, adding that he had to work doubly hard to earn QR375 a day as he has to pay the company QR10,000 a month, a quarter of which is his monthly salary. “Time is very important for me. I have to have a customer every 30 minutes for me to reach my quota, and I don’t sleep when I don’t earn that amount,” he said, adding he was planning to leave in two months. “Many taxis, no customers, and low salary. These, I think, are the main reasons why many drivers act illegally,” he added. As the mercury shoots up in the summer months, the taxi drivers say the number of customers drops during daytime as people prefer to stay indoors rather than venture out into the heat. This hits their daily earnings and then more of them resort to fraud, taking the hapless passengers for a ride, in every sense of the phrase. The Peninsula

Three youth killed in road accident

DOHA: Three Qatari youth died and one was in critical condition in the intensive care unit of a hospital after a road accident yesterday, the Al Sharq website reported. The victims, in their 20s, were on their way to Al Shamal when the driver lost control of the vehicle, which was going at a high speed, and it turned turtle. The vehicle (pictured) was badly damaged.

Hackers sabotage Saudi govt websites

RIYADH: Several government websites in Saudi Arabia were sabotaged in a series of heavy cyberattacks from abroad in recent days, disabling them briefly until the attacks were repelled, the government said. An investigation traced the “coordinated and simultaneous attacks” to hundreds of Internet protocol addresses in a number of countries, an unnamed source at the Saudi Interior Ministry told state news agency SPA. The interior ministry website crashed on Wednesday after it received a “huge amount” of service requests, but was back online less than two hours later after the “necessary technical drills” were performed to counter the attack, the source said. The report made no mention of a possible motive.

US vows help to Bangladesh

In this photograph taken on April 25, 2013 Bangladeshi volunteers and rescue workers are pictured at the scene after an eight-storey building collapsed in Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka. WASHINGTON: Secretary of State John Kerry said yesterday that the US wanted to work with Bangladesh on workers’ rights and safety in the wake of the deadly factory collapse, and offered help after a killer storm. Welcoming his Bangladeshi counterpart Dipu Moni to Washington for talks, the top US diplomat said “our hearts go out to the families” of the 1,127 people killed when a garment factory complex crumbled on April 24. “We hope that this will be able to help all of us cooperate on the issue of labour and labour standards and workers and workers’ rights,” Kerry told Moni after Bangladesh’s worst industrial accident. Bangladesh is the world’s second-biggest apparel maker and the $20bn industry accounts for up to 80 percent of annual exports. Kerry promised the United States had “a number of initiatives” it wanted to share with Bangladesh. AGENCIES