NEWS FROM THE UAE
SOURCE : THE NATIONAL

Taxi inspectors, now on the job 24-7, cracking the whip

Abu Dhabi - APR 09: Mashahoor Afzal pulls his gold-and-white taxi up to the rank at Marina Mall, expecting another passenger to get in.

Instead Jaber al Braiki, an inspector with the taxi regulator TransAD, opens the door and extends his hand.

The two men shake hands and exchange smiles. Things go downhill from there for the Pakistani driver who has lived in Abu Dhabi for 33 years. Asked to produce his taxi permit, Mr Afzal pulls out a blue sheet from his wallet – a permit that expired in 2005.

The driver pleads with the inspector and tells him he has been out of the country for some time. He has to sign for a fine of Dh1,000 (US$372) and could face further punishment later.

“If it was one year [since the permit expired], I would just give him a ticket and maybe he could leave,” Mr al Braiki said. “But four years, maybe there is a reason.

“I told him to come back to the centre, because I will write a report up to them. They can ask him ‘What’s happening? Why you did not renew it?’ Then they can take further action.”

Spot inspections such as this one have become more common in the capital. Last month TransAD announced that its inspectors would be on the capital’s streets 24 hours a day, seven days a week, instead of 18 hours and five days a week beforehand.

The aim, it says, is to improve customer service and shorten waiting times for passengers in the city, where people often complain they have trouble catching a cab.

“How can you satisfy the customer? When you control the driver,” said Saeed al Romaithi, director of the regulator’s corporate services division.

In March, inspectors handed out 220 fines to drivers, 170 of them to drivers of the older gold-and-white cabs. About 80 per cent of the fines were given to drivers for refusing to pick up passengers, said Abdulla al Hameli, assistant manager of the regulator’s compliance division.

That offence can earn drivers three demerit points and a Dh500 fine for a first offence. If a driver receives nine points or more over a 12-month period his driving permit can be suspended. Other common offences are failure to wear a uniform properly and reckless driving.

Some of the drivers Mr al Braiki pulled over yesterday were not displaying their permit or were driving cars that had been involved in small accidents.

One driver operating one of the newer silver cabs that was found to be dirty and who was carrying an expired permit was fined for both offences. Since he was working for a taxi franchise, however, unlike the drivers of the older cabs, his two fines would be paid by the company.

Mr al Romaithi added that inspectors would soon be able to process fines more quickly and more accurately when they start using an automated system. Testing is expected to start in May.

Inspectors will be able to scan a bar code on taxi permits and the driver’s information will be displayed on a screen. They will be able to upload the fines in a matter of seconds by plugging the device into a laptop. The device can also take photos to be used later as evidence. Drivers have 21 days to appeal against fines.

Inspectors currently enter fines manually into TransAD’s database, which leads to mistakes about 20 per cent of the time, Mr al Romaithi said. He hoped the automated system would lead to nearly 100 per cent accuracy.

The regulator also last month created a unit to follow up more quickly on customer complaints. In the past, complaints to its call centre were forwarded to taxi companies directly. The new unit investigates the complaints by interviewing both the passenger and the driver.

The regulator said it received 300 complaints in March, most of them against drivers who refused to stop for passengers.

  
Taxi minimum put at Dh10 in Dubai

Dubai - Apr. 09: The delighted drivers might call it the great lurch forward. How else to describe a sudden tripling of minimum taxi fares?

Effective immediately, every taxi ride in Dubai will cost at least Dh10 (US$2.72) as part of a new fare structure announced yesterday. A starting fee of Dh20 has been set for journeys from Dubai to Sharjah.

The meter will always start at the usual Dh3, but any journey that does not reach Dh10 will be rounded up. The Sharjah fee will be charged when the car crosses into the emirate.

Finally, the fee for waiting time will be 50 fils per minute in addition to distance travelled. Previously, the first 10 minutes of the journey did not incur a time-related charge.

The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) outlined the new fees yesterday, confirming a number of changes that had been introduced informally in the past few weeks. Every taxi in Dubai is expected to be fitted with updated meters within the next two weeks. Some taxis are already charging the fees.

The chief executive of the RTA’s public transport agency, Essa al Dosari, said the minimum charges were introduced to encourage taxi drivers to stop refusing to pick up passengers for short distances and to make trips to Sharjah.

“To put an end to this phenomenon and encourage the drivers to carry passengers whatever the distance is, the meter will electronically round the amount to be Dh10 per trip,” Mr al Dosari said.

Mehmoudi Riadh, from Tunisia, said the fee increase was the wrong way to go about getting taxis to take passengers to Sharjah.

“I live in Sharjah and now this is another extra cost,” he said. “It is not good because of the current financial crisis. People need more ways of saving money. I still think it will not convince a taxi to go to Sharjah.”

But Gareth Brown from the UK was not as concerned. “I think how often I get a taxi that is less than Dh10 is very rare,” he said. “The shortest fare for me is about Dh15, so it does not really affect me.”

All taxis operating for the RTA franchise will be introducing the charges, including the Dubai Taxi Corporation’s fleet.

“Through this plan, we aim to impact the mechanism of the daily work of cab drivers and uplift their performance since RTA views them as ambassadors in dealing with passengers,” Mr al Dosari said.

He added: “Taxi drivers play a vital role in contributing to the advancement of taxi services in Dubai, and they ought to be supported to get an increment in their earnings. The decision will also greatly curb the phenomenon of drivers’ refusal to lift passengers. This will accordingly enhance customer satisfaction and address the demand for this service.”

Even if the taxi is sitting in traffic, 50 fils will be added every minute to the meter. The public transport agency hopes it will encourage drivers to pick up passengers in congested traffic. Previously, this charge would begin 10 minutes into the journey.

Mr al Dosari said the RTA’s marketing and communications department would launch a number of campaigns “to enlighten the public of future benefits of these decisions and the positive effect they will have on upgrading this sector to serve a wide spectrum of the community”.

“Since these decisions will result in increasing the averaged income of drivers, it will also encourage them to put more efforts and considerably cut the cases of refusal to lift passengers.”

Mr al Dosari said the RTA had also dispatched a delegation of representatives for the public transport agency, Dubai Taxi Corporation and all the franchise companies to Singapore last year to learn about the best practices.

Ghobash to investigate BBC labour camp claims

DUBAI - Apr. 09: The Ministry of Labour is to investigate claims made by a BBC documentary that labourers on some construction projects in Dubai are living in “inhumane conditions”.

The BBC Panorama documentary, “Slumdogs and Millionaires”, which was broadcast on Monday, showed an undercover reporter with groups of workers employed by First Group’s subcontractor United Engineering Construction and by Arabtec.

In one camp, where 7,500 labourers were said to be living in 1,248 rooms with poor ventilation, the documentary team reported “raw sewage flowing through the camp” and a lack of clean water.

Saqr Ghobash, the Minister of Labour, is now investigating the “veracity” of the claims, according to a ministry statement.

Maher al Obaid, the acting director general of the inspection team task force, said the ministry would investigate the “alleged derogation of the rights of workers in the construction sector” and would visit the sites.

He emphasised that the ministry carried out regular inspections and fined those who failed to measure up. The ministry will also hold a press conference today on health and safety practices on construction and camp sites.

‘I am just glad to be alive’

Dubai - Apr. 09: Anooshka Khudabakhshi, the Iranian woman who was stabbed in the basement of her building in Dubai on Tuesday night.

Dubai Police are searching for a man who repeatedly stabbed an Iranian student in a basement car park in Bur Dubai before fleeing with her handbag.

The victim, Anooshka Khudabakhshi, 25, is a student at Gulf Medical College in Ajman and lives alone in an apartment in Al Bada Building. A longtime resident of Dubai, she is recovering in Rashid Hospital with multiple wounds in her back.

“I am just glad to be alive,” she said, speaking from her hospital bed yesterday. “It was a shocking moment that I never expected would happen to me.”

Ms Khudabakhshi said she was heading to her car on Tuesday night when a man whom she did not know approached her.

“I was on my way to my friend’s home and I was about to open the car door when I saw him,” she said. “He said he wanted to ask me a question. However, when he got closer he pulled out a knife.”

She said the man, who appeared to be Asian, asked her to give him everything she had.

“Before I could respond he pushed me down and stabbed me repeatedly on my back. I was shocked when I saw the knife. I know a little self-defence but at that moment I just could not move.”

She then screamed for help and pleaded with the man to let her go.

“I told him to take what he wants but leave me alone.”

The man stabbed her two or three times before fleeing with her wallet – which contained credit cards and about Dh5,000 (US$1,300) in cash – and another bag with a mobile phone.

Ms Khudabakhshi used her other phone to call a friend and the police.

“I spoke to my friend and asked her to come as soon as she could,” she said. Sitting on the floor of the basement with her back against the car, she waited for someone to arrive.

“I am training to be a doctor,” Ms Khudabakhshi said. “So I knew that I was having shallow breathing and was badly injured. I just hoped someone would arrive soon.”

The friend, Narges Ebrahim, said she found Ms Khudabakhshi bleeding and in pain.

“I was talking to her just a few minutes before she was attacked as she was coming to meet me. I was shocked when I got the call from her. I asked her not to panic and rushed to her building.”

Col Khalil al Mansouri, the director of CID at Dubai Police, said officers were hunting the assailant.

“A CID team has been formed and is investigating the case,” he said. “The search for the suspect is on, and we have information on a few individuals in the area which we are looking to investigate. We will do our best to catch the man responsible.”

He said because incidents such as this were rare, he did not deem it necessary to give a formal warning to women. “Women should not be alerted as these incidents are uncommon,” he said.

Ms Khudabakhshi said she had been living in Dubai for more than 20 years and had never felt threatened: “This area is considered very safe as it is close to the Iranian Hospital, and there is police around here all the time.”

Shark-fin traders thrive in UAE

UAE - APR. 09: Gourmands like them in soup, doctors prescribe them as cures and dealers trade them to get rich. That is why fishermen continue to flout the law and indiscriminately kill, maim and then discard as many sharks as they can catch. The fins are almost as good as gold.

In the UAE, where shark finning is illegal, traders nonetheless are increasingly exploiting the eastern and northern coasts of the country because of the lack of policing and local regulations, marine agencies have warned.

“The practice of finning is widespread on the northern and eastern coasts, and action must be taken to prevent shark numbers from depleting,” a spokesman for the Emirates Diving Association said.

Plummeting shark stocks worldwide and the untapped population of the Whitecheek shark, found along Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean shorelines, are helping to attract international fin traders, wildlife agencies warn.

They say shark finning in this region has increased over the past decade because of the insatiable Far Eastern demand for the fins, improved fishing technology and traders looking for a profit. One pound of shark fins has a street value of US$300 (Dh1,100).

According to the last report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, in 2004, the UAE counts for around eight per cent of global shark fin exports.

Since shark meat has little value, the fishermen usually remove the fins and then discard the carcasses, still alive in most cases. If dumped back into the sea, the sharks are unable to swim and slowly sink towards the bottom where they are often eaten alive by other fish.

UAE law makes it a crime “to catch living aquatic creatures to extract their eggs, skins, fins and any other parts thereof” or to throw dead fish waste and carcasses of whales and sharks in the fishing waters. Yet there seems to be little enforcement.

The Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi has warned that fishermen practising finning in Abu Dhabi waters will be prosecuted. Its authority does not extend to other emirates, however, and a spokeswoman for the agency said: “The local marine agencies are the ones that should enforce the law.” The Sharjah Environment and Protected Areas Authority was not available for comment yesterday.

Chris Teasdale, a marine environmental scientist with Nautica Environmental Associates, said: “The demand for shark finning as stocks deplete elsewhere around Asian markets means the Arabian Gulf is targeted further due to its rich shark life.”

Although the Whitecheek shark is not an endangered species, other species in the region face depletion. “Species such as the Spot-tail shark, Bowmouth guitarfish and the Blacktip Shark are also being targeted and they are classified as vulnerable,” Mr Teasdale said.

Last Friday, divers near Dibba al Hisn, in Sharjah on the eastern coast, said they saw between 300 and 500 of mainly juvenile Whitecheek sharks among other species being taken off boats.

“There were six to seven boats at around 4.40pm hauling sharks off,” said Daniel Hawkings, a South African diver who spends every weekend in the northern and eastern emirates. “By the end, the beach was covered with the sharks who were hauled off one by one to be finned.”

The Emirates Diving Association is trying to stem the shark-fin trade. Joint forces have been established between the EDA, the Ministry of Environment and international organisations in an effort to reduce the number of sharks caught in UAE waters by limiting the shark fishing to just a few species and sizes.

Oli Taylor, an environmental consultant based on the eastern region, said that the sharks caught in the Emirates were from only a couple of species, including the Whitecheek. These are typically more prolific and faster-growing than some of the larger, more solitary sharks, often feeding on sardines. “They are still being overfished,” he said.

It takes only low levels of finning over extended periods to get rid of the majority of reef-associated species, as well as the larger, longer-lived varieties, Mr Taylor said.