Salutations,
Sunday 1st December is a very important day in South Africa and the world at large. It is a great honour I embrace with humility to welcome you to the Taxi Imbizo on this day, the 1st of December, a day declared internationally to commemorate the fight against one of the worst human tragedies in the history of mankind, a disease of epidemic proportion with no respect to one’s social standing or colour and without a cure.
Today we observe World Aids Day. Although modern medical research is getting closer to bringing the eagerly awaited hope for a future cure to the disease, it is still concerning that an unacceptably high number of people are infected and dying of this disease.
Government and hardworking non-governmental social partners are working tirelessly to reduce the spread of new infections, the number of deaths and the impact on people infected and affected by this scourge. The results are evident in the increased access to treatment, the improved regiment of one tablet a day, a reduction in number of pregnant women who are infected with HIV and a significant reduction in mother to child transmission of the virus.
Despite this progress, our communities still apportion blame to victims of this disease and as such promoting a stigma that makes efforts to assist people infected and affected by this disease less effective. People are still afraid to accept that they are ill and therefore do not access treatment, if they ever do, they default as soon as they get better leading to more unnecessary deaths.
Again, this day marks the seventh day of the 16 days declared to highlight the fight against the ever increasing violence against women and children. This is a gender based violence that leaves the vulnerable section of our communities, women, children and the elderly as victims.
It will be appreciated if all of us here, particularly men, would say no to violence against women and children not only on these sixteen days but as a value in our lives. A message in our various public transport vehicles that brings awareness to commuters about these kinds of campaigns will go a long way in the fight against women and children abuse.
Just this morning, we launched the Limpopo chapter of the festive season Arrive Alive Campaign dubbed “Operation Thibela Kotsi”. This campaign is based on an old adage “prevention is better than cure” – “thibela malwetji e phala kalafo”. With this campaign, we encourage road users to do their best in avoiding road crashes than to live with the horrors of the after-crash.
We call upon everybody to help us prevent the echoing sounds of a cry of an orphan child who lost a mother and/or father, the cry of a devastated parent who lost a son or daughter, the heart wrenching cry of a widow or widower and the harrowing cry of a family member, a friend, a brother, a sister, a neighbour and a colleague as a result of road fatalities.
The taxi industry is often affected by the scourge of road crashes and the worst in with this sector, is that when there is a crash the risk of multiple losses of lives is always high. Road crashes are preventable and we all can make a difference.
We are meeting here on this important day because of the taxi industry. This is your day to talk to your government. Our apologies to those of you who are church goers or rather believers for inviting you to this important gathering on a Sunday. The taxi industry is the most successful business venture to be initiated mainly by black people and in particular African entrepreneurs.
It survived the oppressive years of the apartheid regime where Africans were prevented from owning property and running a formal business. It continues to survive the harsh economic challenges of modern day economics where big corporates take over small businesses to form conglomerates and monopolies.
Since the dawn of democracy, the African National Congress led-government took a decision to formalize and recapitalize what used to be flourishing but yet violent and chaotic business, and transformed it into a modern public transport service of choice for our communities, ferrying more than 60% of commuters daily.
Great progress has been made in this regard, yet there is still more that needs to be done to realize this objective. It is for this reason that a Taxi Imbizo has been convened to take stock of the challenges still facing the industry. The world renowned Peruvian Economist Hernando de Soto who is well known for his work on the informal economy and on the importance of business and property right would certainly classify this industry as part of what he describes as “dead capital”.
The main message of de Soto’s work and writings is that no nation can have a strong market economy without adequate participation in an information framework that records ownership of property and other economic information. Unreported, unrecorded economic activity results in many small entrepreneurs who lack legal ownership of their property, making it difficult for them to obtain credit, sell the business, or expand.
They cannot seek legal remedies to business conflicts in court, since they do not have legal ownership. Lack of information on income prevents governments from collecting taxes and acting for the public welfare.
“The existence of such massive exclusion generates two parallel economies, legal and extra-legal. An elite minority enjoys the economic benefits of the law and globalization, while the majority of entrepreneurs are stuck in poverty, where their assets - adding up to more than US$ 10 trillion worldwide - languish as dead capital in the shadows of the law.”
To survive, to protect their assets, and to do as much business as possible, the extra-legals create their own rules. But because these local arrangements are full of shortcomings and are not easily enforceable, the extra-legal also create their own social, political and economic problems that affect the society at large.
The formalisation and democratization of the taxi industry has transformed what used to be a war zone with vehicles that would be derogatorily referred to be moving coffins to a modern day public transport business, with safety compliant vehicles operating from taxi ranks with better facilities.
To date 3 260 old non-compliant vehicles were scrapped and replaced with compliant vehicles to the tune of R188 million of subsidy to the owners of the old vehicles. Today our people’s dignity has been restored by the availability of a convenient and affordable minibus type taxi service that is tailor-made to suit their transportation needs. It is imperative that the licensing and regulatory bodies must continue to work hand in glove with the industry to improve this service for the benefit of our people and the sustenance of the industry.
The legislative regime under the National Land Transport Act (Act 5 of 2009) brought in local planning authorities that together with the Provincial and National government spheres must develop Integrated Transport Plans (ITP’s) which will inform transport networks. In this way, operating licenses will be issued informed by the plans which consider travel demand and therefore avoiding overtrading of routes which ultimately results in conflicts.
The long journey travelled from the rudimentary stages of the development of the industry to date has seen the industry faced with a long moratorium on the issuance of operating licenses. This was an administrative action aimed at converting existing permits into route-based operating licenses before any new operating license could be issued.
The Land Transport Permit System (LTPS) was a system used to issue permits by various authorities that include the former Republic of South Africa (central government), the homelands and independent states.
The system could not communicate across these authorities and resulted in the democratic government introducing the Registration Administration System (RAS) and the Operating License Administration System (OLAS) which were integrated to manage the conversion of permits and issuance of Operating licenses.
With the advent of the new Act, we expect government and the industry to cooperate to complete this long journey from permit regime to operating licenses for all licensed operators. We are currently working on a mechanism to register all existing operators who are not licensed in order to consider the supply side of minibus type taxis and the demand side expressed by the integrated transport plans from local municipalities.
Polokwane municipality is now working towards its Integrated Rapid Public Transport Network (IRPTN), which will see the dramatic improvement in public transport service wherein the taxi industry will benefit as a partner. We need maximum cooperation of the industry, because this will be an opportunity for us to ring-fence the application of operating licenses to existing non-licensed operators.
The democratization of the industry took intense negotiations by the Department of Transport and the industry where over 21 taxi organizations or mother bodies agreed to be collapsed to form a council of taxi associations (from district to national), which government committed to assist with recapitalization and empowerment.
We are still committed to work together with the industry through the registered associations to the realization of this vision. We have noted the differences that exist among associations and within associations on this matter, which is evident in the apparent dissociation of some associations or their members from the councils of associations.
Our vision is to strengthen the cooperation between the department and the industry and utilize the nominal resources that we assist the industry with to the realization of the vision – where the industry will be self-sustainable. To that end, we believe that the fact that associations and their members do have the right to belong to any organization of their choice or even form their own, should not be construed to be an alternative to a council of associations as envisaged in the vision to transform the industry.
There is a significant reduction of conflicts and violence which is almost historical in the industry, particularly in Limpopo. We have to speed up the licensing of unlicensed operators to assist associations to effectively deal with internal and inter-association conflicts.
Conflicts can be classified as those associated with routes, associations’ internal conflicts, new applications and ranking facilities. The majority of conflicts are basically due to non-compliance with operating licenses or even lack thereof. One growing complaint within associations is purging of members where members are made to pay huge fines or suspended from operation.
Where an association is oversubscribed and its routes overtraded such association will have a tendency of encroaching in another’s routes. An operating license entitles rights and duties to the holder and it is a legal contract between the holder and the department. The MEC through the Licensing Board reserves the right to issue, suspend, withdraw or even cancel an operating license.
This is provided for in the statute. However, it must be stated categorically that the MEC does not have any authority, non-whatsoever, to interfere in the internal affairs of taxi associations. The extent of our involvement is only limited to facilitation and promotion of peace, harmony and stability in the industry through dialogue and consultations.
The conversion, renewal, transfers and replacement of permits and licenses remain the direct service that the department provides to the industry on a daily basis throughout the province. Improvements are being made to these services which include bringing the services closer to the clients through our local traffic centres where capacity has been built to provide such services to avoid the inconvenience of the operators travelling long distances only to wait in long queues for these services.
We received a memorandum from the taxi industry about the cost of these transactions where it was established that the province has prescribed fees that are higher than the national regulation. We responded by showing an intention to comply with the national regulation on fees.
Fees are the domain of the Provincial Treasury and approval has to be sought from the Minister as part of the requirement to implement our intention to align our fees with the national regulations. To this end, there has never been approval from the Minister and there is work underway to review the regulation on fees as it currently stands.
It terms of the current fee which is a cause for concern to the industry, the operators are currently paying R14 per month spread over a period of 60 months. This is a change from R5 per month over a period of 60 months for an operating license.
Since my arrival in the department, I have met representatives of various taxi associations including taxi drivers association. I have met with the Provincial Taxi Council on several occasions and other role players. I must mention to this Imbizo without fear of contradicting myself that there are some within the industry who are busy beating the drums of violence and possibly war.
I wish to take this opportunity to call for calm and encourage dialogue amongst all of us affected. Violence will not solve any problem, it will rather take us back to the old dark days of the industry that is undesirable. Our country is a constitutional democracy and frowns upon any tendency that smacks of violence and criminality. We are calling for “marumo fase”.
Once more, I wish to explain the purpose of this Imbizo. As the newly appointed MEC, I am here to listen to you and understand your challenges better so that I can know how to become helpful to you. I am here to ask for your hand in a partnership to improve the quality of our public transport system in Limpopo.
We therefore welcome you to the Taxi Imbizo and invite your contributions to our efforts to improve this industry which is so important to our communities. Through affordable, safe and reliable public transport we will be able to improve the standard of living of our people and grow the economy. Your inputs are highly valued.
I thank you!
