Lazarus Kwedhi
If you catch a taxi in Windhoek from Havana to the city centre, you pay N$15. If you catch a taxi from Havana to Eros, you pay double. The distance is the same. The time is the same. The only difference is a line on a city map: taxi rank, or not.
That line is costing people their wages.
People who live and work in residential areas and workplaces without a taxi rank, such as Goreangab informal settlement, Lafrenz, and the northern industrial areas, are required every morning to pay N$30 to get home.
That is N$60 a day, on a salary that barely covers rent and food.
There is no taxi rank in Lafrenz or Goreangab, so the fare doubles. There is no transport allowance from their employer. The same predicament applies to students and other Windhoek residents.
Some are unemployed and depend on parents, guardians, or grandparents to cover their transport costs to and from home. As a result, some choose to walk the last stretch to save N$15, risking the dark and the road.
In Windhoek, many residents lose lives and property, or are injured on their way to and from home, because of robbery attacks, or while trying to cross the highway. They do this simply because they cannot afford taxi fare or public transport amid oil price increases and inflation, which have a direct bearing on taxi fares and groceries.
The predicament goes beyond sacrifice. Think about students from non-taxi-rank residential areas and educational institutions, for instance, from Cimbebasia to Lafrenz and the northern industrial area, or from Kilimanjaro to UNAM.
They often miss lectures because they cannot afford the return fare to campus. Think about job seekers in Max Mutongolume informal settlement in the Moses Garoeb Constituency who turn down interviews in Hochland Park, Klein Kuppe, or Klein Windhoek simply because the taxi costs more than the hope of getting the job.
This is not about distance. It is about zoning.
The City of Windhoek designated taxi ranks decades ago to keep the CBD moving. That made sense then. The city was smaller. Most jobs were in town. But Windhoek grew. Offices moved to Klein Windhoek.
Educational institutions and factories went to Lafrenz. Homes spread to Pioneers Park and Klein Kuppe, and informal settlements expanded beyond the proclaimed townships. The people followed the work and the places to call home, but the taxi fares and taxi ranks did not follow the people.
The rule now says: if there is no taxi rank, you pay more. But the absence of a taxi rank is not the passenger’s or taxi driver’s fault. There is a gap in planning by the City of Windhoek and NABTA. Why should a resident pay a penalty because the City never gazetted a loading bay in their area?
The result is a two-tier city: cheaper mobility for those going to ranked areas, and expensive mobility for everyone else. It hits the poorest hardest.
The people in unranked areas are often the same people with no transport allowance, no car, no job, and no choice but to rely on taxis for mobility.
We are in 2026, not 1996. Fuel costs have risen. Living costs have risen. The city has spread. The fare system has not.
Other towns have moved to distance-based fares. It is simple: you pay for how far you go, not for whether your destination has a signboard. Windhoek can do the same.
Therefore, the City of Windhoek and NABTA leadership must consider a stakeholders’ consultative meeting to revise the rule and declare the whole city a single taxi zone, and set fares by kilometres travelled, rather than by taxi or non-taxi rank.
This is not a call for subsidies. It is a call for fairness to all stakeholders. Public transport should not punish you for where you live or work.
A nurse in Hochland Park should not pay double what a clerk in town pays for the same ride.
Until that changes, residents will keep walking, risking their lives and property just to save N$15 to buy bread for school children back home.
Students will keep missing class and fail their courses. Job seekers will keep saying no to opportunities. And Windhoek will keep telling part of its people that their part of town costs more.
That is not a transport policy. That is an invisible border. And it is time to tear it down and dismantle the taxi fare exclusion system in a post-independent Namibia.
