Cabinet on Wednesday confirmed the cut-off date [Wednesday midnight] for minibus taxi-permit conversion applications, but left the door slightly open to latecomers.
At a media briefing after the fortnightly meeting at Tuynhuys at Parliament, government communications head Joel Netshitenzhe said Cabinet had been updated on progress in the implementation of the taxi recapitalisation programme.
”The work being done in the current period includes the establishment soon of a Scrapping Agency, further capacitating of Operating Licensing Boards in the provinces to speed up conversion of permits to operating licences and examination of compliance with safety requirements and colour coding,” he said.
”The meeting reaffirmed that today [Wednesday], May 31, constitutes the cut-off date for submission of applications to convert [taxi operating permits to operating licences].”
In this regard, government congratulated the overwhelming majority of taxi operators [about 85%] who had complied with this requirement.
It also welcomed the fact that the South African National Taxi Council had not requested postponement of this date, and nor was it opposed to the programme as such.
”This creates conditions for movement to new phases of the programme,” he said.
However, Cabinet agreed that, because some operators might have, for reasons not of their own doing, not been able to submit applications, these operators should be allowed to do so beyond Wednesday.
This would be on condition that they were able to demonstrate in writing that they were constrained by circumstances beyond their control.
The ministers of transport and safety and security would finalise gazetted directives on the policing of the minibus taxi industry, taking into account the need not to prejudice those who missed the deadline for reasons not of their own making, Netshitenzhe said.
During a march by taxi operators in Pretoria last week, a memorandum of demands was handed to the deputy director general of transport, Lucky Montana.
The memorandum demanded the scrapping of the National Land and Transport Act, a clear outlining of government’s intentions with the recapitalisation programme and the extension of the May 31 deadline for the conversion of permits.
A nationwide taxi strike was threatened as a ”last resort” if the demands were not met.
At the time, Montana said the process of providing a newer, safer fleet of taxis was well underway, with manufacturers having provided the vehicles in the 17-to-22 seater and 23-to-35 seater categories.
”The nine-to-16 seaters are the last band that still need to be provided by manufacturers at this stage.
”All three bands of taxis will have seatbelts, rollover-bars and the South African Bureau of Standards is working on methods of capping the speed limits for the new fleet,” said Montana. — Sapa