‘It’s the express horse, Pasha.’
That was the response of the driver of the new white taxi when I asked him why the fare was so high. The truth is, there are many like me who are delighted with this new project, which spares us the wasted energy of arguing and fighting with the old taxi drivers, who are accustomed to lying and trickery. It has already become a noticeable trend—many people now stand by the roadside, ignoring the passing black taxis, waiting instead for the new white taxis out of respect for the project and its civility, and simply for ‘peace of mind’.
I waited for more than fifteen minutes before the long-awaited, elegant white taxi arrived. I was with a friend, and we were heading from Tahrir Square to Agouza, where he lives. A few minutes later, we arrived, and the meter read sixteen pounds. My friend was surprised and told me that the fare was usually between five and six pounds. I asked the driver if he had started the meter when we got in or before that. He replied, ‘Of course, when you got in, boss.’
I asked him why, then, the meter had recorded more than double the usual amount. He smiled, his teeth as yellow as his grin, and said, ‘I don’t know, maybe you just think you used to pay less? This is the fast horse, your highness,’ flashing even more of his yellow teeth.
I decided not to continue the conversation. I threw the fare in his face, and his laughter grew louder as he drove off in triumph. I noted down his licence plate number, determined to teach him a lesson he wouldn’t forget—to stop him from tarnishing the reputation of the respectable drivers in this supposedly modernised project. But my friend told me that this behaviour had become common. Once, he had been charged forty-five pounds for a trip from Tahrir to Abbasiya—a journey that had always cost him fifteen pounds.
I refused to let it slide. The only thing that came to mind was the Consumer Protection Agency.
I hailed another white taxi and headed towards Garden City—nearly double the distance. This time, the meter read just five pounds and seventy-five piastres. I shared my frustration with the new driver, venting about what had happened to both of us and my disillusionment with all the fraud. He told me that there were now electronic ‘specialists’ with advanced skills in tampering with these meters, and the practice was starting to spread. Then he added, ‘But stolen money never lasts, boss. God is greater.’
Indeed, God is greater. But I refused to be passive. I decided to contact the Consumer Protection Agency—the pride of the official economic system. The only problem? Nobody had ever told me who they were, where they were, or how to reach them.
Still, I tried. I called Telecom Egypt’s directory service to ask for their number. Over and over, I heard the automated message, ‘Speak from a landline, my fellow countryman’, as if I had been trying to call from the heavens. In fairness, they do answer—if you have enough patience. But this time, the wait was longer than I could bear. I had things to do, and it felt as if they were in cahoots with the grinning taxi driver. As if this entire absurd economic system was built on a three-card trick—a maze designed to make people give up on their rights and just accept the status quo.
In the end, I surrendered to the belief that God is greater, that stolen money never lasts, ‘boss’. I drank from the river of passivity, adjusting to the norm, convincing myself that ‘this is Egypt, Abla’.
This article is originally published by AlBorsa in Arabic and later AI-translated by South Push.