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SPEECH BY KWAZULU-NATAL MEC OF TRANSPORT, MR S'BU NDEBELE, AT THE TAXI INDUSTRY PEACE RALLY17 November 2001
Northern Province MEC for Transport, Dr Farissani, The challenges that we faced as a democratic government when we took our seats in parliament for the first time in 1994 were enormous. There was virtually nothing that any of us could build upon for the previously disadvantaged people of our country and our province. The educational system was in shambles. The backlog in housing was mind-boggling. The culture of crime and violence ruled supreme. The many centuries of apartheid madness had paralysed our economy. Despite this, today the general feeling is that we have managed, collectively as the government, to turn the country around even though many of these challenges are still upon us. Of the many obvious challenges we have been faced with, few have been as complex as those relating to the restructuring of the public transportation system. In South African terms, public transportation virtually denoted horror. It painted gory pictures of minibus crashes and of bodies of our loved ones scattered on our roads. Public transport spelt gunmen spraying bullets at innocent passengers in broad daylight and assassinations under the cover of darkness. It will be remembered that problems at the Durban Station Osborne and Clubbe Taxi ranks intensified after 6 February 1996. Ever since that fateful day, KwaZulu-Natal saw the deaths of leading figures in the taxi industry as well as passengers and innocent bystanders. The serious problem of violence within the industry and the desperate search for peace prompted my Department to establish the Provincial Taxi Commission. After many frustrating years of efforts to end this carnage, Cabinet appointed a judicial Commission of Inquiry into taxi violence and related matters. The Commission, which was established in May 2000 under the Chairmanship of Judge Alexander, submitted its findings and recommendations on 24 February 2001. The Alexander Commission and the Independent Taxi Tribunal have played a very big role by penetrating many of the root causes of violence in this province. The result was that the overwhelming majority of the province's taxi fraternity started turning their swords into ploughshares. As I stand before you here today in the distinguished company of so many important stakeholders in the future prosperity of our province, I am reminded of the commitment we made to this province in April 1994, the month of victory for our democracy, that we pledge ourselves to peace and reconciliation - within government, among all our people, and for the development of our province and nation. We committed ourselves to freedom, equity and participatory democracy. Participatory democracy requires that we implement programmes to enhance public participation in decision-making, in building a civic culture, and promoting dialogue towards nation building. This is what we initiated within the mini-bus taxi industry, and this is what we are committed to pursuing with the participation and support of all those involved in some way or other in the industry. In my humble estimation, the taxi industry serves as a remarkable example of on-going and sustained dialogue, not only for economic growth for the benefit of its stakeholders and the people it serves, but also for finding an end to the unfortunate, and indeed arguably undeserved, public stigma of being an industry of violence. Today, I am proud of the fact that we are at last beginning to succeed in a situation that many, especially among our detractors, were quite willing to dismiss as irredeemable and incapable of being reformed. As you would undoubtedly agree, redemption is a powerful theme in the Biblical message of peace and reconciliation. I say this in the company of especially two distinguished dignitaries to today's peace rally, viz., Mr Mponono Buthelezi, the leader of the Durban Long-distance Taxi Association and Mr Ben Shabalala, the leader of the Durban Taxi Owners Association. These two brothers of common purpose - of serving the needs of our commuters on their respective operating routes - have, like some of their contemporaries, been unfortunately on the receiving end of violent conflicts that have claimed many lives. Today, however, they stand here in renewed commitment to bury the ghosts of the past and to work in unity between themselves and with all the other 250 associations that constitute the family of operators within the KwaZulu-Natal Province. Like in the Biblical parable, they have found each other under the noble understanding of their father. Let's not worry about theological concerns relating to the identities of the father, the prodigal son and the one that stayed at home in the taxi industry. Instead, let us today celebrate the fact that we have been blessed with the circumstances to hold this important Peace Rally, from where we could pledge in unity and peace that nothing should detract us from the onward search and march towards a united taxi industry whose image is henceforth one of redeeming our past weaknesses and difficulties. As I remarked at the African Renaissance Conference in Durban in March this year: as a people, we say "ASINAMONA. ASINANZONDO. SISEBENZELA UKUBUYISA ISITHUNZI NOBUNTU BETHU". We say we harbour no jealousy and no hatred but that we are working to restore our humanity and dignity. Having affirmed our goal of a non-racial, non-sexist democracy, we are in the process of rebuilding our country and our continent while restoring our dignity as well. We do not like the African image to be associated with wars, disease, poverty and ignorance. The remarkable achievements made in the last few months towards putting an end to the violent conflicts within the taxi industry bear testimony to the fact that where there's a will to find peace, there is always a way. It is precisely because a new will existed to end the protracted struggle between the previously oppressed people in our country and the apartheid rulers that we found a way to establish a democracy of which all of us can be truly proud. That success has been in urgent need of injection into the sector of transport - and consequently of public transport within which the taxi industry is located. Today, as a political democracy, our country enjoys pride of place among the world community of nations for demonstrating that unity can be forged on the foundation of peace, and that once peace pervades it is possible for development to take place. We can wave before the world a constitution that not only entrenches the finest principles of a human rights culture, but which also provides the framework for social and economic prosperity so that every aspect of our public duties has opportunities for growth and development -of itself and of the people it serves. Many sectors of our society are growing in leaps and bounds. The weapons of war, of violence and destruction, and of useless killing, are slowly but surely being laid down. After centuries of brutalisation, of dehumanisation and degradation, of deprivation of rights and opportunities, people are praying to settle down to a life of freedom, security and comfort. They want to be able to assert their pride in the miracle of our new nation. And they want to travel in peace, so that when they go to and from their places of work, home, prayer, recreation and all the other things in which public transport has become the lifeline of secure and comfortable commuting, they would be able to be safe. They do not want to be preoccupied with thoughts of a road accident that brings death and destruction. Least of all do they want to be caught in the crossfire of taxi wars, of on-going feuds bolstered by the end of a smoking gun, of hit men who wait in strategic spots to claim yet another life of operator or commuter, and of a public perception that the vital mini-bus taxi is in disguise death on moving wheels. Yet, despite the problems we have faced, perhaps the most momentous and yearned for event in relation to the taxi industry -within my Department, the membership of the taxi industry, the various other stakeholders, the taxi commuters, the communities whose livelihoods and way of life depend on public transport, and the general public itself - has been to be able to witness with pride the fact that two powerful associations that were traditionally at loggerheads with each other have now committed themselves to embracing each other. The Durban Long Distance Taxi Association and the Durban Taxi Owners Association have over the years suffered many casualties in which precious lives were lost and many were injured and maimed because of the serious tensions that existed between these two major stakeholders. The burning turmoil of uncharacteristic hatred for each other presented the ugly sight of a pot that continued to simmer no matter how many times concerned people intervened to remove the logs of heat. This should have served as a clear indication to those who had to watch in perplexity and endure the blot on our Province's search for peace that something more than a feud of rivalry was at stake. Why couldn't that peace come sooner to the taxi industry? Whilst we know that this is a national problem, the situation particularly here in KwaZulu-Natal has been even more perplexing to many. We have just emerged from nearly two decades of ethnic conflicts to today stand together as a province that is determined to bury its past ghosts. But we have not been able to bury the offsprings of those ghosts - at least not yet - because they continue to haunt some of the highways and byways of our taxi routes. I believe that the primary reason for many not understanding the complexity of the situation is that they often fail to contextualised present ills within experience. The tensions were not merely the result of brothers and sisters in common purpose fighting against one another, they were also a graphic demonstration of how wider social causes and deprivations had served as the catalyst of near-disintegration of some among the family of taxi operators. After all, as much as there might be a public perception that the taxi industry is notorious for its violence, the hard truth of the matter is that historically the industry in general has had to operate under conditions of great adversity generated by the legacy of inequity of past unjust political rule. To truly understand this industry's pain, we need to visit the terrain in which it began, in which it is currently travelling, the obstacles that have paved its path, the arduous twists and turns it has had to negotiate in trying to move in synchrony with the social and economic growth pathways, and in fending itself against the highwaymen and road pirates that have frustrated its goals of providing a safe, efficient, cost-effective, and reliable mode of transport to the people of this province. That is the wider canvas against which we need to examine why the journey has been difficult, why there has been so much uncharacteristic violence within a fraternity that has suffered common deprivations and problems, why that violence could not in the past be brought to an end summarily and speedily, what challenges and threats still remain, what strengths and opportunities now offer themselves, and what interventions have been put in place to promote lasting peace and prosperity within a vital cog in the wheel of socio-economic progress of our people. When we deal with these issues objectively and dispassionately, we might perhaps succeed in projecting with greater clarity the truth that it is not that the taxi industry is violent but rather that the socio-political ethos in which it was born created the very conditions to set off a spiral of deep conflicts. Within the wider violence that bedevilled our province and our country for so long until democracy finally came, there can be little doubt that the underlying causes of the violence within the taxi industry were subsumed by the general climate of fear and uncertainty that past political rule had been inflicting on the people. The roots of the problem soon began unleashing themselves in a way that served to expose the parlous state under which the industry had been operating all along. In the past the violence was touted by the previous political regime as yet another example of the myth that as Blacks our people were unable to manage anything even if we took control of it ourselves. The history of transport for Blacks has been particularly painful for the great deprivations they faced in obtaining suitable transport, especially for those who were forced to migrate to and from the cities. There was no financial assistance, encouragement or incentive for Blacks to develop their own industry. There is enough evidence to suggest also that in the past the real problems of the violence were relegated under a cloud of contrived ignorance and distortion of the truth, and in its place was cultivated its manifestation, reflected through gory pictures of taxi violence, accidents and other graphic misrepresentations of the total picture. In the process, there was something more fundamental than the right to safe, secure and efficient public transport that was undermined by the violence. It is precisely because of these factors that, despite the problems of violence within the industry, the minibus taxi industry has come to represent a triumph of the Black entrepreneurial spirit. We need to appreciate that there is a distinct difference between cause and manifestation. It would be foolhardy to believe that the taxi industry represents the sum total of the cause and effects of violence when there is clear evidence that the violence we encounter is largely a pathological manifestation of the wider violence that once characterised our society. At the same time, however, it would be unfair to promote the view that there is a regular chain of cause and effect still operating between wider society and the taxi industry that is forcing the industry to operate within a spiral of violence. Indeed, there is reason to believe that in some instances manifestation assumed a character of its own and became cause. This is evident in the fact that several associations were often forced into a situation of their mode of operations being dictated by hit men. Indeed, as I said at the media launch a few days ago, henceforth these hit men must now be considered retrenched, because peace has no place for those who stoke artificial greed in an environment in which the hands of unity have been now stretched to their maximum, and in which my Department has taken major initiatives to promote opportunities for everybody to have a fair slice of the cake. We need to bear in mind the fact that - aside from the now infrequent and sporadic incidents of politically motivated violence in our province - we have succeeded in maintaining lasting peace at the wider level. Hence, if the wider causes of violence are fast disappearing within the miracle of our new democracy of unity, peace, tolerance, and embracing one another as one South African nation across the divides of race, colour, ethnicity, religion, and other artificial barriers, why should we countenance the trouble-makers within the taxi industry? Why should we create space for those who have no interest in peace to continue to instigate conflict among members of a common fraternity? Why should greed born of an inflated hunger for passengers, travel routes, industry monopoly and other non-African impediments to our traditional spirit of uBuntu be given a chance? These are foreign to our traditional cultures as much as they are totally unacceptable to the spirit of the African Renaissance that declares that there is a place under the African sun for all its children to live in peace and harmony and to prosper within the limits of fair and just entrepreneurship. In the light of the fact that the industry is central to the economic growth, development and upliftment of the historically disadvantaged, my Department took the initiative in 1994 of launching a two-pronged strategy to be implemented in dealing with the problems within the industry. The one was to institute mechanisms to resolve short-term problems as they arose, and the other was to develop the political, legislative and administrative frameworks and capacity towards transforming the industry. The four areas identified by the Provincial Taxi Task Team formed in late 1996, viz., formalisation of the industry, conflict resolution and mediation, education and training, and economic empowerment, were then addressed vigorously by the Department. Despite the harsh conditions of lack of adequate support for the industry by the past government rulers, the absence of a regulatory framework, and poor operating conditions, very few among the critics of the industry seemed to acknowledge the fact that overall the taxi industry has achieved more unity and more peace than meets the eye. This is borne out by the fact that of the 252 taxi associations within the province of KwaZulu-Natal, the vast majority of them have been operating relatively peacefully. Whilst it is acknowledged that there have been sporadic incidents of violence among some of them, the story of these associations is overwhelmingly one of having largely overcome the endemic violence that once characterised their status and to now operate in harmony. This commitment to work in a harmonious relationship is clearly borne out by the fact that these associations have expressed a determination to forge a united front which eventually became part of the newly established and democratically elected, South African National Taxi Council (SANTACO). In celebrating the success story of the two major taxi associations having now expressed a clear and unequivocal commitment to embrace each other in peace, we are poised to witness the final healing of all breaches. When one considers the forces at play in the taxi industry in this province, the progress we have made in the formalisation process is nothing short of a miracle. The taxi industry has indeed come a long way. Three years ago, we would never have imagined that this volatile and once-chaotic sector of public transport would have made such dramatic headway in stabilising and growing into a formidable player within the economy. We are ready now to begin on a journey, a journey of hopefully lasting peace, a journey that says that we have had enough of the violence that has bedevilled our province within the taxi industry. On the premise that the taxi industry, which transports more than 65% of all commuters in the country, is the flagship for Black economic empowerment, the fact that we often came very close to the danger of compromising the whole reconstruction and development programme of our province towards the social and economic stability and prosperity for which our nation is striving, cannot be tolerated. Nevertheless, today is a great day. Let us mark today as a great day. We are celebrating peace in what is termed in Zulu Culture "Ukukhumelana umlotha" (loosely translated as extending the olive branch). As a result of the maturity displayed by the leaders of the taxi industry, prominent and internationally acclaimed Black artists have come out in support of their brothers and sisters in the taxi industry. Our involvement as the Government goes beyond promoting and advancing peace within the taxi industry. We have a plan and a programme to nurture and develop it so that it can gain its rightful place within the formal business sector. To create peace without at the same time developing the industry would encourage even those who have been rehabilitated to go to their old ways. Here we are not striving for a general stability only but we seek to create economic stability. Let us not forget that there are those who always want to portray a negative image of the taxi industry especially because Blacks predominantly run it. In the final analysis, I want to thank His Excellency King Goodwill Zwelithini for gracing our function today. I also want to thank all leaders and other visitors who are present here today for supporting peace within the taxi industry. I would like to express my appreciation to our artists for the special musical presentation on the taxi industry. The private sector has been very supportive of the peace process for they know that peace is more than the absence of war and guns. Peace means the presence of economic development. I thank you.
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