The National Taxi Alliance (NTA) would take legal action to stop the recapitalisation programme, the organisation decided on Thursday.
If this failed, the NTA’s members would go on strike, its president, Sicelo Mabaso, told a meeting of NTA affiliates in Johannesburg.
”We want to stop the recapitalisation programme … the government wants to destroy the taxi industry completely,” he said.
He did not know when or in which court the matter would be heard as the NTA had only received its mandate to pursue legal action on Thursday.
Mabaso could not say how many affiliates the NTA had, but said it was ”quite a number”.
He estimated that there were about 150 000 minibus taxis on South Africa’s roads.
”If you take these [Toyota Siyaya] taxis it is just as good as you are dead,” NTA spokesperson Alpheus Mlalazi told the meeting.
The current 15-seater Siyaya’s left a driver with a monthly income of R1 731 after expenses of R15 909 was subtracted from an average monthly income from fares of R17 640.
If the number of seats were reduced to 13 including the driver, he or she would lose R1 797 a month since expenses remained the same and income was reduced to R14 112 a month.
Similarly, new models proposed by the government, which included Nissan, Fiat and Mercedes-Benz, would lose drivers money as they were expensive to run.
Mabaso said: ”People think we are happy with our skoro-skoros [wrecks]. The reason we drive them is because of their affordability.”
Mabaso said the government’s changes to the Siyaya’s specifications were designed to drive the taxi industry out of business.
”It shows that the intention of the government is to remove taxis and bring in buses.”
He said that since 2005, changes to the specifications included reducing the number of seats and then insisting last week that a tall person should be able to stand up inside the vehicle. – Sapa