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Are daladala crew above the law?
2007-12-31 08:48:25
By Editor
Privately owned commuter buses commonly known as daladala are doing a good job of facilitating transport in the city of Dar es Salaam and elsewhere.
One of their much needed services is to ferry people to and from work, and transporting pupils to and from school.
Most of the daladala crew are decent and friendly to passengers, apart from the notorious few who have succeeded to give the city commuter bus industry a bad name.
Just recently, a bus conductor threw off a student who was attempting to board a bus, and this poor child was crushed to death by the moving daladala.
The irresponsible bus crew, true to their reputation, simply sped off, obviously attempting to escape from the long arm of the law.
As fate would have it, they were finally arrested, actually after the police had originally announced that they were at large, and that the registration number of the ill-fated bus was unknown.
The arrest of the suspects clearly indicates that the police can and should take to task the free-wheeling daladala crew who are violating traffic regulations with impunity, leading to a lot of motor accidents, which could otherwise be avoided as they are man-made.
The laxity in penalizing errant commuter bus drivers in Dar es Salaam has led to various unsubstantiated allegations, one of them being that many of the daladalas are owned by senior police and government officers, thus there is no one to bell the cat.
We do not wish to be caught in the web of claims and counter claims over the ownership of the buses.
suffices it to say that not a few people are chagrined at the fact that many mavericks masquerading as genuine bus drivers—the traffic police themselves have announced that many of them possess fake driving licences—are allowed to hold innocent passengers` lives at ransom under the full glare of the law enforcers.
When the police announced that they were yet to trace those responsible for the death of the student who was crushed by a moving daladala, apparently because no one had taken down the bus registration number, well, people thought, they are up to the same tricks as usual.
Nevertheless, it transpired that the culprits were eventually arrested, most probably because of the resulting public indignation.
We hope, as it has already been announced, that the suspects will be taken to court so that if found guilty, the penalty can serve as a permanent lesson to like-minded commuter bus pilots.
There are those who keep saying that given the huge number of `vipanya` in Dar es Salaam, it is virtually impossible to regulate them.
However, this is rather a flimsy argument given the fact that in neighbouring Kenya, a no-nonsense minister was—almost single-handedly— able to instill order and self-discipline in the operations of the `matatu.`
These days, there is nothing as comfortable as a matatu ride in Nairobi, and whoever doubts this fact, can go there after the election to witness this reality!
We call on the relevant authorities to exercise political will by putting the commuter bus industry effectively on line.
It is high time we did away with lame excuses whenever it is demanded that our urban transport system should be systemized.
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