Twenty cars granted permission to operate as taxis in Male

The Transport Authority has said that twenty new cars have been granted permission to operate as taxis in Male’.

Chairman of Transport Authority Abdul Rasheed Nafiz said that following the earlier invitation to submit applications, several groups had applied for the permission to operate as taxis.

“We grant permission only to vehicles that were imported and registered before May 2013, and meet the requirements to operate as taxis,” he said.

Nafiz said that the decision to grant permission to additional cars to operate as taxis came after receiving complaints that the approximately 600 taxis which have permission were not providing sufficient services.

“Our investigation showed that less than 50 percent of the cars that have the permission provide taxi services. This causes problems for several people. But we can’t take any action because there’s no regulation regarding this,” he said.

Nafiz said that a regulation had been compiled and sent to the Attorney General for advice about a month ago.

He said that action would be taken against those who violate the regulation as soon as it is gazetted.

“Under the new regulation, a certain number of taxis must operate every day, and each taxi must work for a minimum number of hours. They should keep a log book to record this,” he said.

He said that he was hopeful that the current problems would be solved once the regulation is enforced.

It is near impossible to get a taxi in Male’ on a rainy day, and people often complain about not being able to get a taxi by calling taxi centres.