Behind the obfuscatory officialese of the government’s new taxi programme there lies a carefully worked-out strategy aimed at transforming every facet of the unruly industry.
Among the strategic objectives of the new taxi deal are:
l to take control of taxi ranks run as private fiefdoms by particular associations and warlords to the detriment of other operators;
l to create a system of differential taxation on diesel – characterised as the “fuel of the productive economy” – and petrol, which would be heavily taxed as the fuel of luxury and consumption;
l to stop the illegal importation of up to 15 000 minibus taxis that do not meet safety specifications every year;
l to edge out criminal elements that currently hold the industry in a stranglehold;
l to clamp down on concealed police involvement in the ownership of taxis – which is estimated at about 10% of the entire taxi fleet;
l to identify and decommission stolen minibuses and, by enforcing a subsidy system which will only pay out for legal and legitimate taxis, weed out the criminal element from a mafia-riddled industry;
l to bring the industry – with an estimated turnover of between R15-billion and R20-billion a year – inside the tax revenue system; and
l to restore a balance between supply and demand in an industry where taxi wars have been blamed on an oversupply for a limited demand.
“It’s all part of an integrated package,” said Minister of Transport Abdullah Omar. “We want to bring peace to the industry, as well as a service that is comfortable and safe to the consumer. We are also looking to promote the economic empowerment of small business via the recapitalisation process … real empowerment by assisting people who are now drivers to become taxi owners, instead of the current situation where the rich just get richer.”
There’s also a lot of cleaning up that the new scheme aims to pull off – dramatically enough, by taking the entire fleet of 120E000 currently registered taxis off the road. In part this is justified by the fact that an estimated 80% of these fail to comply with government safety regulations.
But there’s also a lesser-known issue at stake. The Mail & Guardian has learned that every year up to 15E000 potential death traps are smuggled into South Africa by a well-established route, before being illegally registered as commuter taxis.
The vehicles, brought in by private syndicates mainly operating out of Lesotho, Botswana and Swaziland,are bought at rock- bottom prices in Japan after being taken off the road after only three or four years of service.
Though supposedly destined for those three Southern African Development Community states – which do not have legislation prohibiting the importation of used vehicles – the minibuses are instead equipped with false registration and ownership papers inside South Africa and end up being put to service as taxis.
But, as Gary McCraw, executive director of business at the Motor Industries Federation points out, Japanese minibuses are not up to the job. “These are basically designed in Japan for transporting families,” McCraw explained. “It is only in South Africa that Toyota has developed their axles to accommodate heavier passenger loads with any degree of safety.”
McCraw confirmed that the inadequate axle loads of the illegally registered vehicles is one of the major causes of accidents involving minibuses – approximately 70E000, resulting in 2E289 deaths every year.
The new scheme will entail scrapping currently registered taxis under government supervision before their owners will qualify for a subsidy of about R40 000 to offset the cost of 18- and 35-seater buses – which, in terms of government plans, will be the only vehicles to be licensed as commuter taxis.
But only vehicles which pass the test of legal registration – that is to say, where the taxi’s enabling permit matches the vehicle’s identifying features – will be eligible for subsidy after scrapping.
This means that operators not only of illegally imported taxis but also of the large number of stolen and otherwise illegally registered minibuses on the road will, by government logic at least, be identified and taken out of the commuter equation. So, the government hopes, will police officers with double agendas.
“It’s a source of major concern to us that police officers continue to be involved in the taxi industry as owners,” said Superintendent Roy Govender, a member of the South African Police Service task team on taxi conflict in the Soshanguve and Acacia area north of Pretoria.
Govender estimates that up to 10% of taxis in areas like Soshanguve are owned by members of the police service. The M&G has learned that the majority of these were bought after members of the old regime’s police force took retrenchment packages in the period of transition in the early 1990s – before rejoining the new South African Police Service.
More than 200 people have died in taxi wars in Soshanguve alone since violence erupted in 1996. The recent report by a commission appointed by the Gauteng Ministry of Transport found, damningly, that police in Soshanguve had not only failed to prevent taxi violence in the area, but had gone so far as to make police service weaponry and Casspirs available to taxi hit squads. In certain instances, the report found cops had even taken part in hits on rival taxi organisations.