A photograph of a passenger embracing and potentially kissing a motorcycle has been going viral since Wednesday, June 3 morning when a ban on moto-taxis for passengers was lifted to allow them to hit the road after almost three months in COVID-19 lockdown.
On June 2 the cabinet agreed to restore moto-taxis, inter-provincial public transport to allow the return to normalcy and resuscitate businesses.
Although buses take many passengers before, the city’s talk is now resuming on moto-taxi.
The reason is obvious to Daniel Ngarambe, the president of Ferwacotamo, the Moto Transport Federation in Rwanda.
“A moto provides convenient transport; you will ask the moto-taxi rider to drop you at the bank, the boutique, at the hospital, at home and they will do it and at a fair cost,” he said.
“ On another side, however, the bus will first find a bus stage before dropping you and the truth is, you will have to walk for several minutes more before reaching your destination.”
Moto comfort and accessibility have become unquestionable to many city dwellers, and Karege Musa has found something special about the Moto taxi in this sense.
He has been setting up a moto of one operator known by Sosthene’s only name for the last six years.
With multi-tasking, He supports him.
“Business in this city changes quickly. You need that kind of transport that takes you here and there with ease to do parallel businesses,” he said.
“From Nyamirambo to the Free Trade Zone in Gasabo, I use nearly two hours on the bus, but can you believe that I use 20 minutes on the same trip on moto?” he said.
Sosthene has evolved into more than a taxi operator, but an employee, a Karege individual can trust tasks other than taking him to many locations.
“We have reached a point where I no longer call Sosthene a stranger in my life. On several occasions, I ask him to go to the market to pick groceries and take them home or ask him to pick something from home and bring at my workplace,” he said.
Karege doesn’t care whether he has money or he doesn’t; he’s going to give Sosthene who’s going to use his money and then get refunded.
This is a general partnership that many people are developing with the moto-taxi operators, whether or not they own a vehicle.
They trust them, apart from carrying them, with messages like courier, picking a guest and taking them home, picking a key or cell phone they’ve forgotten at home and so on.
According to some city dwellers, the idea is to make sure you have one, two or three moto-taxi operators so you can call the second or the third if one isn’t available.
In a city with one million inhabitants and more than 250,000 trafficked people every day, the capital Kigali has yet to find enough buses to minimize waiting time on a bus stage where a passenger can wait for up to one hour.
This has deteriorated during this time, when buses take half their capacity to avoid spreading COVID-19.
Therefore it makes even more sense to use moto-taxis.
Leave the common citizen alone, if the taxi motorcycle operator doesn’t reach the road the taxi man will still be worried.
There are 45,000 moto-taxi operators in Rwanda, according to Ferwacotamo’s Ngarambe.
We are members of 18 unions-each with three cooperatives.
“Every moto-taxi operator has to deposit Rwf 5,000 on the moto owner’s account,” Ngarambe said.
It makes Rwf 225 million mathematically but a moto-taxi operator will earn as much as Rwf 15,000.
“He will put aside the motorcycle maintenance fee, pay the daily due, and keep the balance for him. Moto is a good deal,” he said.
Investors in Rwanda are also aware of moto-taxi ‘s potential; telecommunication companies still compete to advertise with them.
The technology companies have also introduced billing systems that, once accepted, earn them a fortune. Pascal Technology’s newly launched meter is expected to help the moto-taxi operators electronically charge passengers.
Given this earnings, however, COVID-19 lockdown hit harshly on moto-taxi operators. They turned to their co-ops to bail them out of their savings.
“We have learnt a lot. Usually, the savings of a moto-taxi rider is the fuel reserve for the next to twenty kilometers. We are now introducing our members to saving culture so that no disaster catches us off guard anymore,” Ngarambe said.
