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Govt should intervene in daladala fares
2006-05-22 07:18:53
By Editor
There is no doubt that rising fuel prices always spark price hike of other consumer items, such as food, clothing and services.
The price rise for these items are always attributed to transportation costs. Since the transporters pay more for the fuel, then they charge more for transporting the items from their sources to the markets.
That concept is very simple even to laymen. However, the problem is on the ratio of the price hike of consumer items in relation to the corresponding rise of fuel prices.
More often than not, end consumers find themselves at the mercy of retailers and service providers, and this is more so due to the absence of a government price regulatory body.
However, the belief that consumers should always find themselves at the mercy of traders, can be reversed, to relieve consumers from bearing the burden alone.
A good example is the provision of a service to consumers, and in particular where the service itself is the provision of transport to a large section of the community in a specified area, such as the city of Dar es Salaam.
A few days ago, commuter bus (daladala) owners, who provide services in Dar es Salaam hiked fares per trip from 200/- to between 250/- and 300/-, citing the fuel price rise as the reason. It is a rise of between 25 to 50 per cent.
That rise is far more than the fuel price rise in recent weeks, which have gone up by between 11 to 12 per cent only. Everyone can see that commuters are getting a raw deal from the daladala owners, in the pretext of fuel price hike.
However, even under the most basic principle of free market economy, of supply and demand, daladala owners are failing to sustain the price hikes. Some have reverted to the old fares of 200/- per trip, whilst others even charge lower than that.
It shows that in so far as Dar es Salaam commuter service provision is concerned, the demand far exceeds the supply.
In other words the bus owners are failing to meet the demand of the commuters, and that’s why they (bus owners) always find it difficult to enforce the bus fares which they themselves agitate for.
In such a situation, there is always a confusion, as commuters are not sure how much they will be charged whenever they board the buses. The result is trading of insults between conductors and passengers.
We suggest that the government should step in to rectify the situation by way of assisting Dar es Salaam commuters from their plight. It’s time for it to regulate daladala fares.
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