Commuters stranded due to transporters’ strike

Protecting their customers’ pockets and the profitability of public transport, taxi and combi drivers are now looking at the government to consider relieving them from paying licensing fees and high fuel prices before resorting to another transport fare increase. The recent spike in the cost of fuel on Friday sent prices up by a staggering P2.74 for diesel and P1.48 for petrol, wiping away the already weak profits that combi and taxi drivers were previously making. As a standard procedure in response to increased fuel prices, transport strikes have historically been aimed at increasing fares to keep drivers relatively profitable. However, several increments in both fuel and fare prices over a short period have hit the pockets of public commuters to the point where drivers are already losing business. A Gaborone taxi driver, Otsile Tsie, expressed that the increase in fuel prices means that he takes home essentially nothing at the end of a workday.

“We make around P400 a day, we put in around P250 per day which leaves us with P150 to pay the owners of our taxis. When our children ask us for a pen or pencil for school, we have to tell them we don’t have money,” Tsie said.