Durban - Leaders in the taxi industry say the sector is ready to be professionalised and regulated.
They were speaking during a webinar held on Sunday themed “Unity and Leadership in the Taxi Industry” hosted by Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula.
The panel included South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) president Phillip Taaibosch; former public protector Thuli Madonsela; Dr Mathetha Mokonyama from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research; and Dr Hlengani Moyana from the Road Traffic Management Corporation.
The purpose of the webinar was to discuss solutions to regulate, formalise, empower and unify the taxi industry.
Taaibosch said the industry was ready for “professionalisation and regulation”.
Mokonyama said that as the leadership in the industry, Santaco needed to play a strong role to empower their associations to partake in trans- actions with the state. “Santaco needs to have the technical capacity to do so, it needs to have project managers because this is a major project you need to have the leadership to drive this programme,” he said.
He warned that if Santaco was not able to achieve this, the industry’s issues would continue. The proposed professional body, which Santaco was identified to oversee, should be more formalised and have authority.
Moyana said: “It must be the kind of professional body that is to a large extent autonomous with legislative authority in terms of the minister having authority to legalise the establishment of such a professional body.”
The regulatory body would have recourse to deal with non-compliant members, he said. “Everybody who will be affected or will be governed by this structure needs to be involved in terms of the establishment.”
Moyana noted that driver wellness was an important factor in terms of safety and there should be an illness and fatigue management system.
Drivers needed support in terms of skills development to obtain and retain competency in safety, customer service and violence prevention.
Madonsela said that while the taxi industry was resilient, it had struggled with being agile in a changing world.
She said the industry was known for violence, rudeness, not paying tax and being disunited. There was a lot of room for the industry to adapt and for diversifying services to align with the needs of modern society and the modern economy.
The taxi industry had been failed by the government and had not received their dividend from democracy, she said.
She added while municipal buses continued to be subsidised by government, which made the fares cheaper, the taxi industry was not subsidised.
Taaibosch disagreed with the proposal that the taxi industry needed to be incentivised in order to change.
He said that if the government had stuck to the Standard Interim Constitution implemented in 1995, which held taxi operators accountable for transgressions by taking their operating rights away, the industry would have seen change.
The problem started when government employees and law enforcement officials moved into the industry, Taaibosch said.
“I think that if we can go back and become serious in regulating the industry and ensure that structures of the industry like associations and provincial structures have teeth, like the medical councils and law societies, you will see a drastic change in the industry,” he said.
Another solution raised during the discussion was that technology should be used to track operators and ensure consequence management.
The Mercury