Sharjah taxi crisis: Cabbies get ‘work or resign’ alternative

A senior official of Cars Taxi Group that operates both Citi and Union Taxi in Sharjah has blamed lazy drivers for orchestrating the protests.
 
MI Abdul Razak, Assistant General Manager of Cars Taxi Grouptold Emirates 24|7 Tuesday afternoon that every measure that the company has taken is in consultation and following the approval of Sharjah Transport.
 
“Those drivers who do not want to work can return the vehicle and resign. We are not in any way responsible for their actions as we are not ill-treating them. Every driver is paid according to what he earns,” said  Abdul Razak.
 
According to him, the company has had to bear the increased expenses of vehicle and insurance cost over the years while petrol price alone went up twice this year. “The cost of a vehicle has increased from Dh50,000 to about Dh70,000. So is the cost of insurance and the interest rate on loans. The latter two has increased from around 6.5 per cent to 11 and 9 per cent in 2010. Every taxi, on an average runs for about 350kms daily and our petrol expenditure has increased from Dh1,600 per month to about Dh2,200 per month.”
 
In order to work around the high petrol cost an agreement was reached with Sharjah Transport where base rate would be for 600 metres instead of the earlier 800 metres. A taxi driver used to earn Dh1.31 every kilometre, whereas now he makes about Dh1.61 every kilometre. So as far as he is concerned nothing has changed. Moreover he gets to earn Dh10 for one short trip instead of Dh7, increasing his profitability by Dh3,” said  Abdul Razak. In order to make Dh400 a driver used to make 30 trips earlier whereas now he just needs to make 20 to 25 trips.
 
According to him, the company’s expenditure has increased by almost 15 to 20 per cent while the business due to recession has dropped by 15 per cent.
 
“The company is running on a defecit budget and our revenues have dropped by 15 per cent. We tried explaining this to the drivers,” he said.
 
According to him, every driver on an average takes home Dh3,500. “The lazy ones take away Dh2,500. The good ones even take home D6,000. On an average they have to work for about 10 to 12 hours a day,” he added.
 
Meanwhile, hundreds of drivers from all taxi companies are said to have submitted a memorandum to the Labour Department and are submitting their resignation to their companies.
 
“We are trying to explain to them. But if they do not want to listen, then it's up to them. They can hand over the vehicle and leave,” said Abdul Razak.

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