140 thousand taxis in Algeria but the problem of transportation persists

The 140 thousand taxis circulating in the streets of the Algerian provinces didn’t solve the problem of transportation for the citizens, because of the absence of clear regulations to organize this sector.

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• Algiers alone comprises 11 thousand taxis while in the past the number was 18thousands. The ministry number shrank drastically since the issue of coercive rules by the transportation department with the view to reorganizing the sector.
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• Paradoxically, citizens have to beat the bushes or wait for a long time to find a taxi for their daily movements because the taxis drivers are simply imposing their own law. Indeed, most of them (taxi drivers) chose their own itineraries and refuse to go to some places avoiding traffic jams.
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• For their part, the taxi drivers slam the relevant department and blame it for not fulfilling their demands which are still pending since years. In this respect, Hocine Ait Ibrahim has noted that the taxis drivers exercise amid very hard conditions because they have to stand for all charges by themselves.
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• He went on saying that 70% of the park lot needs to be replaced by new cars but, he said “the taxi driver has to turn to a foreign bank to get credit for this operation”. Moreover, the taxis drivers’ Union raises the problem of the accumulation of debts since 1993 which vary from 15 thousand to 500 thousand Algerian Dinars for each taxi driver.
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• The situation has worsened with the proliferation of a new means of transportation in Algiers and other major cities across the country. Many citizens use their own cars to transport desperate people from one place to another illegally and have to pay hard cash in return.
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• Among these so called “clandestins” (illegal) many of them are taxi drivers who offset the “meagre” taking during the day. Amazingly enough, the authorities are reluctant to intervene in order to make an end to this anarchy, because many policemen practice the same business.
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• The professionals of the sectors are blaming the transportation ministry for neglecting the profession because it mainly focussed on the realization of the subway and the streetcar instead.