Valletta cabs providing poor service

I have been putting off writing this letter for the past few months in the vain hope that the service provided by CT Cabs improves.

It appears that out of the nine electric cabs originally at the disposal of the company there now seem to be only two, and more often than not this is reduced to one cab. Last Monday, a rainy day, I called for a cab to pick me up from the MCP car park at 8.30 a.m. and was told that no cabs were available at the time and that I would have to wait about 45 minutes. I decided to walk to my destination in Valletta and on the way, not five minutes after my call, lo and behold there was a cab sitting outside a famous fast food restaurant in Republic Street, devoid of its driver. I walked on and to my utter disbelief there was another standing outside the Law Courts, again devoid of its driver. This is not the first time that I tried to avail myself of this so-called "service" to be told that no cabs were available. I wonder why?

To make matters worse, later on that same day at around 1.20 p.m. I again attempted to make use of the service to return to the MCP car park.

This time I was told that again no cab was available because they were all booked and that there would not be one available until 4 p.m. because there was a two-hour break between 2 and 4 p.m. Has this company not heard of staggered breaks? Again I walked and arrived at the car park at 1.40 p.m. only to see the two cab drivers going off duty, fully 20 minutes before their assigned break-off time.

This is only one of a number of incidents of which I have had personal experience, and judging by this I am certain that many more people have a similar story to tell.

It is high time that the authorities bring CT Cabs to book and ensure they provide a proper service.

Failing that, they should be given the boot and replaced by another company that can offer a more efficient service.

However because, like this government, I believe that competition is healthy, the monopoly should be gotten rid of and other operators should be given the opportunity to operate a competitive service. Only then will the public be offered a decent public service.