Johannesburg – Santaco president Phillip Taaibosch has slammed how the government has abandoned its own formalisation and empowerment plans for the taxi industry almost three decades into the democratic dispensation.
Taaibosch was speaking on Thursday as the Transport Department led the national taxi lekgotla in Ekurhuleni yesterday which was geared towards formalising the industry and ensuring its increased safety and convenience for commuters through government support.
Taaibosch said the 1996 national transport task team (NTTT) which was set up by former transport minister Dullah Omar, had focused on the unification of the industr, and eradication of violence and economic emancipation, but that the government over the years had ignored the recommendations of the NTTT.
“This has broken our trust in the government. SA is now in the sixth administration with 25 years of democracy but the taxi industry remains unsubsidised. This is despite it accounting for 70% of the transportation of the employees, the majority of whom are government employees,” he said.
He complained taxis continued to be financed at high interest rates despite Statistics SA showing the taxi industry as the most preferred mode of transport in the country.
Deputy Minister of Transport Dikeledi Magadzi said research conducted by the department had shown that while the reform of the minibus taxi industry had since 1994 been on the government’s transport agenda, the sector remained saturated, informal and plagued by violence over routes as it was in the early 1990s.
Magadzi said the government was pumping money into the industry in a bid to ensure it was recapitalised and modernised, with R7.7 billion having been spent to ensure the scrapping of taxis that were road unworthy and not meeting the imposed specifications of a public transportation vehicle.
“It is important that we formalise the taxi industry and it is important that the taxi industry complies with the regulations that are there. It is important that as we promote and formalise the industry, the empowerment of the industry should be something we work towards,” she said.
She said many of the introduced modernisation initiatives for the industry were aimed to increase the convenience of the commuting public, as South Africans overwhelmingly relied on taxis to move around.
“One of the things that we have spoken to was that we need to introduce, as part of developing the industry, a cashless fair collection,” Magadzi said.
Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula is set to later address the indaba.
Political Bureau