Business, not bloodshed − Western Cape taxi summit urges regulation of industry

“We need to write a new chapter and it cannot be written in blood.” These were the words of the South African National Taxi Council Western Cape chairperson, Mandla Hermanus, during the Western Cape Taxi Peace Summit which was held in Cape Town on Monday. Geared towards curbing violence in the industry and to create a safer and more reliable transport system, the summit saw different taxi associations, the provincial and local government and business sector among other stakeholders getting together to find solutions to the violence-ridden transport system.

One of the factors contributing to taxi violence in the Western Cape and at the national level that Hermanus highlighted is the lack of regulation of taxi owners and the drivers. “We do have a vetting system when people enter the business. A Quantum is about half a million and we do not know where people are getting the money to buy the car,” he said. Vetting would be a general background check on all operators, according to Hermanus, that would allow the transport authorities to filter out people who are on the national sexual offenders register or who may have been arrested for drug-related offences.

“Sometimes you have taxi drivers who are involved in gangs and they get attacked when they drive in rival gang turfs. This is why vetting is important but we think a psychometric evaluation is equally important to identify people who have propensity to violence or are child molestors,” added the Western Cape Santaco chairperson.

Hermanus accused vehicle financing institutions of facilitating the sale of taxis to illegitimate operators. “Members of the community are not supposed to buy a Quantum without proving that they are registered to an association and have a valid operating licence, but because of fraud in the financing institutions, people are able to buy taxis even at hire purchase. This creates problems in the industry,” he said.

Nceba Enge, the chairperson of Cape Organisation for the Democratic Taxi Association (Codeta) said that vetting of everyone involved in the industry would be one of the ways to deal with violence and extortion crime that hangs over the industry. “Some of the killings are not taxi-related but because the person who does it is involved in the industry makes it look like it’s taxi-related,” said Enge.

In his opening remarks, the Western Cape MEC for mobility, Isaac Sileku urged the stakeholders and the public not to see violence in the industry as a norm. “I know that all legal operators here are decent and hardworking people who want to operate their businesses in peace and harmony. They get up early, they work late to serve communities. They want stability, they want to earn a living and go home safely, they want peace. But we must stop pretending that the violence we see is normal. Violence is not culture. It is not tradition, it’s not pride. It is pain and destruction. And it must end,” he said.

Mark Skriker, from Cape Town’s mobility department said that the issue of floor crossing by taxi owners is one of the causes of violence. He attributed the violent deaths of 83 people and the subsequent closure of the B97 route between Paarl and Bellville to taxi owners moving from one association to another. Aggressive recruitment by taxi associations, route invasion and bad administration of routes are some of the other issues he pointed to as stoking violence.

A lucrative and unregulated industry

There are about 250,000 taxis in the country and the taxi industry in South Africa is worth R50-billion, according to Andy Mashaile, a security strategist. “In the Western Cape, there are about 40,000 taxis and a large part of those taxis are found in Cape Town. It is a 5 to 7 billion rand industry in the Western Cape. So with that sort of money, it is bound to attract organised crime gangs and transnational organised criminals − those who want to clean their money, drug dealers and those involved in human trafficking and smuggling,” he said.

Solutions to the violence

Most of the panelists agreed that formalisation of the industry would be one of the solutions to deal with violence. “We are advocating for a shift away from the taxi associations to business entities, a situation where the primary association is registered as a business unit and it is subjected to company laws, consequences and there is accountability. And in instances where people are unable to account, then there are steps to make them to account,” said Hermanus.

The move to business units was echoed by Mashaile, who said that most of the problems plaguing the industry would be solved by developing it into business units. “Setting up business units that will look at challenges, new areas to be developed, new routes that will come with those areas, new malls that are going to be built and designing routes going into those malls so they can plan ahead − that would deal with the problems of floor crossing, overcrowding, infiltration. So a business model would be able to help identify and offer solutions to the problems,” he said.