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* This was the first interview on today’s Moneyweb@Midday show.
JEREMY MAGGS: A very warm welcome. Let’s start with this, the South African National Taxi Council [Santaco] has postponed talking with the task team to resolve thorny issues of impounding taxis. The association says it is still dissatisfied with the City of Cape Town for impounding taxis at the weekend.
Santaco is also filing another court application to stop the city from taking its vehicles. More now from Rebecca Phala, who speaks for the council, a very warm welcome to you. So what, firstly, is the situation in the city today?
REBECCA PHALA: Hi Jeremy and the listeners, we can confirm that taxis are back to work in the Western Cape. We have no intention of striking at this particular moment in time. You would also remember that when we started, we had just communicated a stay-away. So it wasn’t so much a strike, but a stay-away. We can also confirm that if we intend to withdraw cars again in future, we’ve committed to communicate to commuters and all other stakeholders within a period of 36 hours before we embark on such action.
Listen/read:
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JEREMY MAGGS: What specific reasons, Rebecca, has prompted Santaco to postpone a meeting with the Minibus Taxi Task Team, if I’ve read this correctly.
REBECCA PHALA: So we postponed all engagements with the task team because we’re pursuing legal action at the back of the agreement that we had entered into last week with the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape Government.
The details thereof of what’s behind the legal action, we can’t disclose that as yet, but we are very unhappy with the decision by the City of Cape Town to continue impounding vehicles, even after our initial discussion, and that’s why we’re pursuing this legal action.
JEREMY MAGGS: At some point, you are going to have to sit down, surely, with the city though.
REBECCA PHALA: Of course, the bigger question is that you would also acknowledge that we actually have been in dialogue with them. We’ve just had to pause now because if you are in dialogue with a person, you agree on certain things and then they go and act in contravention of that, you then pursue other things.
But we’re not at all cancelling out any possibility of further discussions with them. We just want to also pursue other avenues because the initial discussions that we’ve had have not proven to really do what we thought would be the agreed norm amongst all affected stakeholders.
JEREMY MAGGS: Beyond that, are you having further conversation with any other authorities about the broader issue of regulation?
REBECCA PHALA: Absolutely. Look, back in 2020, Jeremy, you would remember, alongside the listeners, there was the National Taxi Lekgotla, which was convened, by the way, by the National Department of Transport. At the back of that engagement, three key issues were regulated, were resolved upon – we resolved that we would ensure the unity of the industry, will ensure regulation of the industry and will also ensure that there’s professionalisation. So the discussion has always been there.
As I speak to you now, there’s a working group that’s been formed together, which is presided over by the department to talk about the very issue of regulation because some people often will loosely say the taxi industry is not regulated.
It’s not entirely true because for a person to be on the road and operate a service of taxi operations on a daily basis, they would have been given a permit or an operating licence by a provincial regulatory entity within whichever area that they find themselves to be operating. But there are some issues which often lead to, for instance, what’s happening in Cape Town, which talk to issues of regulation, hence that working group has since been convened.
Read: City of Cape Town to sidestep Aarto
JEREMY MAGGS: What regulatory changes are you specifically looking for?
REBECCA PHALA: Not so much changes. I think what we are looking for is heightened implementation of the law and for the implementation of the law to also always be in accordance with the [SA] Constitution. What we’ve seen, which has then led to a lot of contentions amongst ourselves and a number of regulatory entities, which would then be in the form of traffic officers who will then stop a vehicle in the road, is that when a fault is done by a driver, the immediate action then is to impound a vehicle, which we don’t necessarily agree [with].
But you would’ve also seen that it is then formed into this bigger debate about legalities of the NLTA [National Land Transport Act] the NRTA [National Road Traffic Act] and how it then cascades down to the level of municipalities and that’s why we’re going to court. So we just want for the implementation thereof to always be in keeping with what’s happening at the national perspective from the constitutional aspect.
But also, the reason why that working group was started is because there are material conditions which the industry is facing, surrounding issues of financing and the possibility of operators to be able to continuously ensure that their vehicles are roadworthy, that they are properly maintained because everybody knows by now the financial challenges that the industry is facing, many of our vehicles are being impounded as we speak.
So the question of subsidisation of the taxi industry then also takes centre stage there to say, how does government then meet us halfway, especially considering that we remain one of the largest transporters of South Africans in present day.
Read:
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JEREMY MAGGS: In terms of safety and regulation, how do you believe the authority should be dealing with unroadworthy vehicles?
REBECCA PHALA: Unroadworthy vehicles should be dealt with in accordance with the law, which is impoundment of the vehicle. For example, the wheels are in a bad shape or the overall vehicle is not in a good state. We absolutely agree that it has to be impounded and there’s never been a problem with that. But now when a driver, for example, Jeremy, fails to indicate when they change lanes, whilst that is very dangerous and could cause an accident, and we truly agree with that, we don’t necessarily understand that to be justifying the impoundment of the vehicle.
But that driver who we would then assume has gone through the rigorous training that every South African goes through before they’re licenced to drive, should then be given the necessary fines which are legislated. So in principle, we don’t have a problem with the upholding of safety on the road and ensuring that vehicles that are contrary to that are impounded, but it has to be done in accordance with the law. That’s the basis of our argument.
JEREMY MAGGS: Do you think all trust has been broken between your organisation and the City of Cape Town?
REBECCA PHALA: I don’t think so. I think it has been tested to a great extent, but I don’t think that all trust has been broken. I think if it had been, we wouldn’t be talking about any further possibility of engaging in dialogue, but I do believe that to some extent it has been somewhat bruised and it may need to be looked at intensely and perhaps even beyond the legal avenues and everything has been spoken about, I think that there will be a need for further and thorough discussions between both stakeholders so that everything is then put out in the open and nobody then assumes the worst about the other. But I don’t think that all hope is lost.
JEREMY MAGGS: How do you respond to claims that five people, including a British doctor, died as a result of these violent clashes during the taxi unrest?
REBECCA PHALA: First off, we are very saddened about the deaths, Jeremy, and we wish to send our condolences to all the affected families. Unfortunately, we’ve also said that as an organisation, when we initially pronounced on the stay-away, we promised the commuters and the community members who had filled that hole that day that we’re doing this because we are frustrated.
Not once did we ever profess that there is a need for violence to emanate and we’ve continuously even said that throughout.
It’s very unfortunate that such a genuine cause for concern about the realities of the industry resulted in lives being lost. It should not have happened and it’s very regrettable. We also implore legal, well, law enforcement to really do all that they can to get to the bottom of this because we will, one, not take responsibility and if it were to be found that people who work within our operations were behind those acts, they should not be treated any differently, the course of the law must just take place. It’s very regrettable.
JEREMY MAGGS: Rebecca Phala, thank you very much.
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