Cashless bus fair system should be made optional

Editor, RE: “Why we need the cashless bus-fare system” (The New Times, February 26, 2016). What bus operators need to understand is that they are in the business of providing service to customers for a profit. That service must include offering choice to your customer, not forcing them to adapt to your own preferred payment system for your own rather than the customer’s convenience. Not everyone who needs to use city public transit buses is from the city. Those people may not have easy access to non-cash means of payment, or even know how to use them but need and have as much right to use the bus just as the city-dweller. Make electronic payment an option, not the compulsory choice. Kigali, as any city worth the appellation, owes its residents and visitors efficient and readily accessible public transport. That requires transport services that are easy and available to any user, whether they have access to electronic payment systems or not. The last I looked, cash was still legal tender in Rwanda, including Kigali. It should not be disqualified as a legal means of paying for goods and services by operators privileged to hold concessions to provide an essential public service in our capital city. Mwene Kalinda

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Cashless bus fair system should be made optional