Thousands of Eastern Cape taxi drivers say they will support anything that will halt the government’s taxi recapitalisation programme because they still don’t understand it.
Nearly four years after the government announced its plan to upgrade the ageing taxi fleet on South African roads, provincial taxi bodies still complain that they have been excluded from all critical stages of its development.
”Even today, we just don’t understand what this recapitalisation means — it has become a source of confusion to us,” said Border Alliance Taxi Association (Bata) president Vuyani Mshiywa on Tuesday at a meeting for taxi drivers at the Mdantsane Indoor Sports Centre.
Close to 1 000 taxi drivers from various taxi bodies in the province attended the meeting, which was organised by the Eastern Cape Taxi Council (ECTC). The council claims to represent 27 000 taxi owners.
Last week, less than an hour before the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the government and the South African National Taxi Council (Santaco), the KwaZulu-Natal Taxi Council won an interim court interdict preventing the signing because its members hadn’t seen the contents of the agreement.
The recapitalisation programme aims to replace about 97 000 ageing minibus taxis with safe, efficient 18 and 35-seater vehicles.
The government announced that the existing smaller minibus taxi vehicles will be prohibited by 2006.
Mshiywa said the recapitalisation programme had instilled fear and uncertainty amongst ECTC members.
”No sound-reasoning taximan can sign a document not having understood what it entails and how it’s going to impact on the future of his business,” Mshiywa said.
He said the government must first give clarity on the matter of subsidies, finance and repayments for buying the new vehicles and the future of the current fleet.
The meeting agreed to elect a new committee to ask the government to give them a comprehensive report on the recapitalisation process.
Delegates to Tuesday’s meeting are expected to report back to their organisations and plan for electing the new committee. – Sapa