Paying to use toilets in travel agencies divides public opinion

“When I’m traveling from Douala to Yaounde or to the West region, I usually pay 50 francs just to urinate and 100 francs to excrete in a travel agency. It is embarrassing but when one is pressed you have no choice than to pay,” Ulrich Tsekem, a Douala-based businessman tells Mimi Mefo Info, Thursday July 23rd.

Passengers after paying their tickets and waiting for the departure of their buses in agencies obligatorily engage in other expenditure of paying for the use of the toilets owned and managed by the agencies.

According to Rodrique Tenga, a commercial motorcycle rider, “In beer parlours, bars, restaurants, hotels and other commercial public places, we ease ourselves for free but in travel agencies we are forced to pay. This is frustrating”.

In most travel agencies in Akwa, Bepanda, Mboppi and other places in Douala, paying to use the toilet has been instituted.

Passengers complain, grumble but reluctantly and obligatorily pay when nature calls. Workers of travel agencies say the business brings income to the agency that is used to pay those in charge of maintaining the cleanliness of the toilets.

“If passengers and other users don’t pay, where will we have the money to pay cleaners of the toilets?” One of them questions in all confidence.

On Thursday July 23th 2020, boys beat to death a gendarmerie element in civilian attire at FINEX travel agency in a place called “Douche Municipal” Akwa Douala.

This happened in the course of a fight to retrieve 100 francs from the gendarme after using the toilet in the agency. The situation has sparked condemnation with many calling on the Ministry of Transport to stop the commercialization of toilets in travel agencies in Cameroon.

Mimi Mefo Info.