Morocco: Taxis refusing customers will be punished

Taxi drivers who refuse to transport passengers are now in the sights of the Ministry of Justice. The latter plans to classify this refusal as a crime or an offence. This news pleases customers, but puts professionals in the sector in difficulty.

In the eyes of many Moroccans, considering the refusal of some taxi drivers to transport customers as a crime or an offence is a “step towards criminal repression and the end of extortion practiced by some taxi drivers and their unacceptable behaviour, which sometimes reaches the point of seizing the goods that the customer may have inadvertently forgotten in the taxi.” Professionals are not against improving their sector. “Professionals are not opposed to improving the sector to make it stronger, organised and structured, in order to repress the deviant behaviour adopted by some drivers,” declares Hespress Mustapha El Kihel, Secretary General of the Moroccan Democratic Union of Transport, speaking of a legal vacuum. “The sector is governed by dahirs, and it really needs to be freed up. There is a legal vacuum, because in the Highway Code, we do not find sanctions; we find them rather in prefectural decisions that can go as far as seizing the vehicle if it is proven that a professional driver has committed an offense,” he said.