Many drivers pass by with an empty taxi, but “show no desire to stop to find out the customer’s destination”, especially when it comes to Marrakchis, some citizens denounce to Hespress, adding that they prefer to take foreigners. A violation of the texts in force. They refuse “to transport Moroccan customers, considering them as secondary customers as soon as a ‘preferred customer’ of professionals in this type of transport, namely a foreigner, presents themselves”, they add. A behavior that develops more and more as we approach the celebration of Eid al-Adha. “These scandalous behaviors of which small taxi drivers continue to be guilty towards citizens now require repressive intervention from public authorities,” said Zakaria Bchikri, human rights activist and civil society actor in Marrakech, explaining that “this problem has intensified due to preparations for Eid al-Adha, a period marked by a significant increase in activity disrupted by the actions of certain professional drivers. »
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The association also denounces these drivers “who refuse a particular journey under the pretext that it does not suit them, although the law obliges them to take the customer wherever they wish, within the limits provided for travel in a petit taxi”. “The disruptions affecting” Moroccans “can be attributed to certain drivers, while the anger in Marrakech has become indeed virulent,” adds Bchikri. For him, “discrimination between Moroccan citizens and foreigners, with a preference for European or American customers, represents humiliating behavior for Moroccans who endure the constraint of waiting a long time for a taxi, ten passing successively without any one stop “. “This problem is widely discussed in Marrakech and has intensified with the increase in demand for public transport during this special holiday period,” admits Mustapha Chaoun, national secretary general of the Democratic Organization of Transport and multimodal logistics.
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However, he rejected “the always organized and studied generalization aimed at attacking and demonizing the professional driver to make the public accept transport via applications. » Defending his corporation, he assures: “We are all for the moralization of the professional life of taxi drivers, and there are isolated cases who practice these actions denounced by citizens”. Chaoun will add: “If we turn for example to the security and public authorities, we see that the number of complaints is very low, so any disturbance that we talk about is as if we were in an unorganized or anarchic profession. » The professional also affirms that it is necessary to carry out a complete review of the transport sector to improve the services of taxi drivers. “The campaign to attack the professional driver whose livelihood is taxi was also alarmingly popular in Casablanca, but it has diminished since public authorities decided that licensing for transportation through apps would not happen; and it is the same fate that awaits these deliberate defamation campaigns with a certain generalization against professionals in the sector,” he concludes.
