Ever seen a five-kyat note? Did you even know that five-kyat notes still exist? Well, not only do they exist, but believe it or not, people are still using them to pay for actual stuff such as bus rides.
Earlier this week, an unofficial Yangon Bus Service Facebook page — not to be confused with the actual YBS Facebook page — posted a photo of what is allegedly the contents of a YBS cash box. Among the pile of a cash was a mythical five-kyat note, which was assumedly the passenger’s only contribution towards their bus fare (unless they had an additional 39 five-kyat notes on hand).
The person who uploaded the post lamented, “[People] said they didn’t want spares on the buses, so we worked to remove them… A bus ride is only 200 kyats. In today’s economy, 200 kyats isn’t a lot. You can’t even buy a piece of candy with 5 kyats.”
Previously, bus fares were collected from passengers by the bus ‘spares’. Last month however, the Yangon Regional Transport Authority announced that they would no longer be employing spares on buses, and would instead have cash boxes installed in which people can put their money.
However, it seems that a small group of passengers are taking advantage of the new system. The Voice reported that an estimated fifteen percent of passengers don’t pay the full amount, and that five percent of passengers don’t pay it at all.
While several users in the Facebook post’s comments section suggested that installing a card payment system would solve this issue, not everyone was entirely on the YBS’s side. A few people took it as a chance to air their own YBS horror stories, pointing out that there were other things that the YRTA should also be looking to address besides unpaid bus fares.
Additionally, a number of people pointed out that this problem was indicative of how high bus fares are, even at ‘only’ 200 kyats.
As one user put it, “No one wants to try to secretly ride for free at the risk of being publicly humiliated. If you see that someone can’t afford the money, we should pay the fare on their behalf. We won’t go bankrupt over giving an extra 200 kyats.”
