The government payment of R50 000 per vehicle in the taxi recapitalisation programme should be doubled or trebled and supplemented with a subsidy, the National Taxi Alliance said on Monday.
The alliance said some taxi drivers are illegally overloading because they cannot afford the new standards.
Alliance spokesperson Alpheus Mlalazi said motor manufacturers cannot produce the new, bigger taxis for less than R250 000 each and taxi operators cannot afford more than R200 000.
”This tells us that save for poor quality products that are being rejected by the market, new taxi vehicles meeting or attempting to meet the required specifications are unaffordable,” said Mlalazi.
The government programme offers operators a once-off subsidy or scrapping allowance of R50 000 per vehicle, to encourage operators to change to vehicles that meet the new industry standards.
”We are still puzzled as to how the government arrived at the scrapping allowance of R50 000 when, given the prices of the vehicles that are attempting to meet the specifications, it is clear that recapping operators will, after paying the scrapping allowance as a deposit for the new taxis, remain owing the financial institutions more than R300 000, requiring them to pay monthly instalments of over R7 000,” said Mlalazi.
He said the taxi recapitalisation programme will only be affordable ”if government is willing to renegotiate the scrapping allowance and implement a taxi subsidy”.
Mlalazi called for a scrapping allowance of R100 000 for a taxi costing between R140 000 and R160 000, and of R150 000 for a taxi costing between R170 000 and R250 000.
Mlalazi said some operators who cannot afford the changes are now operating illegally.
He said taxis bought as 15-seater minibuses should now be used as 12-seaters, resulting in an operating loss of about R3 400 a month.
”This has forced taxi operators buying the 12-seater to illegally increase seats and some to hold back the replacing of their old taxis or the increase of their fleet.”
Mlalazi suggested that two different markets be created, one with the new expensive taxis for ”middle class users and 2010 Soccer World Cup fans”, and another for poorer commuters.
Mlalazi said there is also a problem with getting the new licences because many operators have been unable to get permits for years due to a moratorium on issuing any. Those operators now have to buy unused taxi permits for between R6 000 and R15 000 in order to get new licences and qualify for recapitalisation subsidies.
Department of Transport spokesperson Collen Msibi said the department had received 115 000 applications for new operating licences. Of these, 103 000 had been received by the May 31 deadline for applications.
Msibi said some provinces had started issuing new licences but he could not give figures.
”Some of the people who are applying were not on our database. For example, in Mpumalanga, they were expecting about 7 000 but about 14 000 came.” — Sapa