By Rosli Abidin Yahya

Services offered by pirate taxis or "teksi sapu" provide stiff competition and cause big losses to registered taxi drivers in Brunei-Muara District.
It is time for members to rise up to the challenge and seek immediate and long-term solutions in combating the long-standing problem of pirate taxis, said the newly elected president of Brunei-Muara Taxi Drivers Association (BMTDA), Hj Bakar Hj Hamdan.

"First of all we must improve our services. By doing so I believe the public will go for legal taxis instead of 'teksi sapu'," he told the Bulletin yesterday.

'Teksi sapu' refers to private vehicles used to transport passengers for a fee and without permits issued by the relevant authority.

Asked if the piracy problem could be solved if relevant agencies beefed up enforcement, he said it would help a lot, but it is not as easy as it looks.

"Even if the enforcement is good, since the service provided by legal taxi drivers is still poor, the public still prefer to use 'teksi sapu'.

"We must be ready to admit that we need to improve our services too," he said. He admitted that even if they improve their services, some commuters prefer to use pirate taxis as they offer cheaper fares.

"Some pirate taxis use old vehicles to pick up regular customers and do not mind being paid much lesser.

"They can afford to do that as they don't pay instalments and do regular maintenance," he said.

Hj Bakar said on behalf of members, he thanked the relevant agency for allowing their taxis to operate beyond the seven-year age as long as the vehicles passed technical inspection.

Taxi owners last year called for a review on the reduction of taxi permit to seven years, arguing that the new regulation would cause many taxi drivers to quit their profession as they could not afford to change their taxis that often.

The imposition of the rule could have grounded many seven-year-old taxis as owners could not afford to replace their vehicles.
 
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