Minister Madikizela's meeting with City and SANTACO

After my meeting with the leadership of the South African National Taxi Council (SANTACO) yesterday, I scheduled an urgent meeting with the MMC for Transport Ald Felicity Purchase and MMC for Safety and Security JP Smith today. The meetings were called to address last week’s incidents where Taxi drivers blocked the roads in a protest over impoundment of vehicles and heavy traffic fines.

My commitment is to find amicable solutions within the ambit of the law and ensure that people are transported to work safely and improve efficiency in the minibus-taxi industry which contributes massively to our economy.

Today’s meeting went very well and four critical issues were discussed:

1. Fines and impoundments of taxis.

MMC JP Smith agreed to consider releasing vehicles impounded last Friday if SANTACO provides a list of the drivers who blockaded the roads without the owners' knowledge. SANTACO Leadership agreed to send the list, understanding that MMC Smith will criminally charge the drivers. Those who continue to drive without operating licences and PDPs will face the might of the law.

2. Fines issued for off routes taxis who are avoiding accidents or road works.

The Provincial Regulatory Entity must look at the proper wording on the permit in this regard in order to make it easy for law enforcement agencies to identify those are off route because it’s a detour and those who are breaking the law.

3. Issuing of operating licences for illegal taxi operators.

A workshop between the Department of Transport and Public Works and the City of Cape Town is scheduled for the 4th of November. This will look at illegal operators, criteria to be used to issue operating licenses to minibus-taxi industry and e-hailing. It must be emphasized that this problem is caused by associations who continuously accept new members by charging them joining fee as an incentive to flood the routes and put pressure on government to issue operating licences. Not all illegal operators will receive operating licences and we don’t want to raise expectations in this regard.

4. Process to employ drivers as full time employees and training in order to have control over their actions/behaviour.

We have been raising this issue for some time but taxi drivers and some taxi owners are not keen on regularizing their drivers relationship with the owners. This matter will be discussed at the planned workshop taking place next month.

We are committed at addressing a number of other issues bedeviling the mini-bus industry.