South Africa’s Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) has scored a major breakthrough with the taxi business fraternity in what could culminate in the registration of more than 40Â 000 taxi operators in Gauteng alone, according to a release from the Labour Department on Monday.
This follows an agreement that the fund reached with the Gauteng Taxi Council — one of the South African National Taxi Council’s biggest affiliates — to register their businesses and taxi drivers with the UIF.
The deal will be formally struck in style with the launch of a mass registration of taxi owners at a symbolic function to be held at Turffontein race course on Thursday.
UIF spokesperson Kgomotso Sebetso said the low registration of taxi operators with the UIF had been a matter of concern. A sectoral determination had made it possible to extend UIF coverage to taxi drivers, administrative staff, queue marshals, fare collectors and cleaners as from July 1 2005.
“We must admit that the response of the sector to the registration of workers in the taxi sector has ever since been extremely disappointing. To date only just under 5Â 000 of a possible estimated 135Â 000 taxi drivers in the country have been registered with the UIF,” Sebetso said. — I-Net Bridge