Tajik Minibuses Driven to Destruction

The privately-run minibuses that serve as public transport in the Tajik capital Dushanbe will soon be a thing of the past, putting several thousand drivers out of a job at a time when work is hard to come by.

In April, the mayor of Dushanbe banned all Chinese-made minibuses on the grounds of passenger safety. The city authorities alleged that the drivers all too often failed to submit the vehicles for mandatory testing and did not pay their license fees.

The city administration is bringing in a fleet of over 1,000 14-seater buses made in South Korea, which officials say will be safer because public transport operators will run them. Private operators will still be free to import them and use them as buses, as long as they pay for a public transport licence.

Deputy mayor Abduhamid Sheraliev told IWPR that road safety was the key concern as the shared minibuses were frequently involved in accidents. He said the streets were full of these vehicles and their owners were not known for their careful driving.

Of the 5,000 registered commercial minibuses now operating in the capital, only one-fifth have undergone the proper vehicle checks and had permits to carry passengers. That leaves 4,000 operating more or less illegally, he said.

Last year, there were 72 traffic accidents involving minibuses, 18 per cent of the total number in Dushanbe. These crashes left four people dead and 78 injured.

Road safety expert Shavkat Mahmudov says that for far too long, government agencies including vehicle inspectors and traffic police have ignored the routine overcrowding of minibuses.

Another safety expert, Murod Hollov argued that fatalities involving minibuses – four out of the 55 killed in traffic accidents in 2009 – were actually quite low.

The Chinese-made minibuses appeared on Dushanbe’s streets in 2006, and quickly became popular as they allowed operators to offer cheap and rapid travel on routes not covered by the patchy public transport system. They also provided a good source of income for drivers.

Farhod, a 35-year-old driver, has spent the last two years earning a living with the minibus he bought. “I’ve sustained my family and paid for my eldest son’s wedding,” he said.

Now the prospects of finding another job are bleak. Tajikistan, already the poorest of the Central Asian states, has been hard hit by global economic crisis and many firms have been laying off staff. Thousands of migrant workers have had to return from Russia because of a slump in the construction industry there.

“How am I supposed to live now?” asked Farhod. “There’s a crisis in Russia so it’s difficult to go there and earn money, while here the authorities are taking away our chance of earning a crust of bread.”

Analysts warn that abolishing the minibus industry at a stroke will affect not only thousands of drivers but large numbers of dependents.

Political analyst Parviz Mullojonov said the ban should have been introduced gradually.

“Many minibus drivers are in desperate straits. A measure like this needs to be introduced in several phases,” he said. “So many people will be made unemployed all at once. In Tajikistan’s current situation, this could lead to social upheaval.”

Economic expert Firuz Saidov added that many drivers would find themselves in deep financial trouble as they had taken out loans to by the soon-to-be worthless vehicles.

Political affairs commentator Abdullo Qurbonov says that in an environment of high employment levels, the authorities should have taken a different tack, regulating private operators more stringently, making owners qualify as bus drivers, limiting the hours they worked, and revoking their operating licenses if they persistently broke traffic regulations.

Saidov agreed that with a more gradual approach, the problem would have resolved itself as the Chinese-made vehicles would not last more than three or four year before being taken off the road. In the meantime, they would have covered the inevitable shortage of buses, since only 1,000 or so Korean vehicles ones are being imported compared with the 5,000 Chinese ones now operating in Dushanbe.

As things stand, he said, “Transport problems will arise, as 90 per cent of passengers commute using privately-run vehicles.”

The city authorities are offering commercial drivers a chance to join state-run transport companies, which currently have several hundred vacancies.

But a driver who gave his name as Rasul said the pay on offer was too low.

“There aren’t enough jobs there to provide for all,” he said. “You can judge for yourself – you can earn 150 somoni [30 dollars] a month there. How can I keep my family on that amount? I used to make that in two days.”

Rasul plans to shift his operation to routes outside the capital.

“It won’t be as much money as before, of course, but at least my children won’t go hungry,” he said. “Although there’s no guarantee they won’t introduce a ban on the surrounding roads in a couple of years.”

Nargis Hamrabaeva is an IWPR-trained journalist in Tajikistan.

This article was produced jointly under two IWPR projects: Building Central Asian Human Rights Protection & Education Through the Media, funded by the European Commission; and the Human Rights Reporting, Confidence Building and Conflict Information Programme, funded by the Foreign Ministry of Norway.

The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of IWPR and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of either the European Union or the Foreign Ministry of Norway.