The on-going and never-ending taxi drivers’ screams for help are just too loud and I wonder how the government can continue to be silent.

The advent of competitive Uber and Grab taxi services has finally pushed the regular taxi drivers to the edge. In the future, it will only take imagination and inventiveness to see the arrival of many more similar transport service marvel-packages given the ground-breaking new age technologies that promise to keep driving the world of tomorrow.

It is not enough to keep retorting, ‘Transformasi’.

It is very irresponsible of leaders to merely spew out mantras that admonish the poor conduct of bad taxi drivers; it is lame to even keep suggesting that taxi drivers are to be blamed for their inability to match the competitive transport service alternatives that have appeared on Malaysian soil, like anywhere else in the world.

It will take a whole deal of integrity from leaders and government to come to the rescue of our Malaysian taxi drivers because for far too long, this service was operated like the typical Malaysian-style rent-seeking business venture.

For as long as taxi permits are the exclusive privileges of who-is-who-in-town or those who are politically connected, the humble wage earner behind the wheels will perpetually remain the pawn.

For as long as the Malaysian-style pajak system remains as the sworn business success model, the taxi driver is destined to remain the victim of deteriorating services.

The government must have the sense of integrity to recognise and uphold taxi driving as a choice vocation. This will then demand that ownership is transferred to the driver. With ownership made reasonable and minus the fleecing mechanisms that are well entrenched here, there comes accountability.

To help taxi drivers to be accountable, the government must institutionalise the taxi driving vocation. The government must provide training, assistance, measurements and monitoring means to ensure that taxi drivers can remain qualified in the business by meeting the well enforced standards.

While it is true that individual taxi drivers may cheat - just like a lone grocery operator, an attractive taxi business system that stands to reward any honest cabbies handsomely with revenue earning opportunities will be guarded with determination for fear of losing a well-paying job opportunity.

If a cab driver cannot earn a net RM 2,500 a month working 8-12 hours a day, six days a week and still enjoy some days off than the taxi driver is indeed a modern-day slavery victim.

After six decades of being in control, we still do not see the government making the humble and oppressed taxi business attractive for graduates to consider as a viable and respectable option.

But innovative communication technologies on the world wide web have today made even well-paid executives to quit their office jobs, buy a new premium car and drive under the Uber system.

If only the government was thinking outside the box and ensured that its paid government staff were thinking and working smart enough, our humble taxi business would have re-invented itself just like those in neighbouring countries like Thailand and Singapore.

We lacked integrity. Let us be humble enough to begin from here if we really want to rescue our taxi drivers, their families and all those people here who need to use this service.