 
SPEECH BY THE KWAZULU-NATAL MINISTER OF TRANSPORT, MR S’BU NDEBELE DURING THE SECOND ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE TOP SIX TAXI ASSOCIATION, 24 JULY 2003 DURBAN, KZN
Programme Director Welcome to KwaZulu-Natal, we welcome you and thank you for choosing this province and this city to be the host for your conference. It is meetings such as this one that always give me a sense hope about the future. People need to turn to each other instead of turning against each other for us to move forward as a country. If you as taxi people turn to each other not against each other this will demonstrate the seriousness you have about your livelihood. It is this seriousness that will show your detractors that you are worthy and a serious economic force to be reckoned with. As you know, South African farmers have gone a long way in changing the damaging perception that they are murdering their workers. This has been done efficiently by exposing those bad apples among themselves so as to protect their industry. In the same way, the taxi industry must shake itself up and rise from these ashes. You need to show that the taxi industry is one worthy of investors to place their hard earned money in. Your behaviour will determine whether you, as an industry, survive or not. If you continue to persecute the very people that support your businesses - the customers along with other road users - you will not prosper. Do not get me wrong. I am merely cautioning you about what should not happen. My department and I wish to see this potentially powerful economic house really achieving its full potential. I do know that there are obstacles in the way towards that and I also wish to touch some of those today. TAXI RECAPITALISATION This programme has raised heated debates in South Africa, but particularly within the taxi industry. Recently it has been a mobilizing issue for and against the structure of the relationship within the industry itself but also with government. A proper review is therefore required and a brief look at the history of the recapitalization is warranted. First and foremost, it should be noted that the Taxi recapitalization programme has been housed in the Department of Trade Industry with whom we will be have some deliberations on this matter very soon. In the winter of 1996 national public sessions were held throughout the country with the aim of soliciting views of the industry and other stakeholders on the way forward for the taxi operation. There were two major areas requiring intervention by government that were identified by the stakeholders:
This became the central policy framework and challenge for the National Taxi Task Team. There were other initiatives in 1997/8 that sought to address the issue but did not see the light of day. These included introducing second-hand Japanese minibus-type vehicles and a reduced purchase price of vehicles. The taxi recapitalization’s strategic objectives were to address four critical issues:
The approach adopted was to source a business coalition which will include the following stakeholders:
Together there were to provide a suite of solutions covering all four critical issues in an integrated fashion. A technical proposal was formulated which suggested the following financial and engineering models.
An international bid was put together inviting potential business coalitions to submit offers based on these considerations. The response from the market was not what was expected. The offers they gave did not match the initial technical proposals. Clearly that was the beginning of the crisis faced by government. DEFINING A FUTURE Defining a realistic future scenario is crucial at this stage. I will divide this into two. A NEW FRAMEWORK
In its totality, these interventions will constitute a sustainable base for a healthy industry. We are also proposing the following
Effectively this means that whilst not dictating the outcome, you protect, support and advance the investors who have come forward showing interest in developing a unique vehicle as an addition to the public transport forum. The "sunset" vehicles are allowed to die a natural death, and on the other you put in place infrastructure and systems to build ‘sunrise’ vehicle. You live the rest to the market to find its appropriate level. REPRESENTATION Last Friday there was a very negative side of the taxi industry that was shown. This has continued to spoil and damage the reputation of the taxi industry in KZN. One of the complaints that were expressed in last week’s demonstration was regional representation in the Provincial Taxi Council (KWANATACO). We view this situation in a very serious light because as government we need to have structure, legitimately recognized, for us to deal with so that we will be able to assist the industry. We welcome some changes in the industry’s representation that will allow for the entire provincial taxi industry to be adequately represented. We, therefore, shall assist elections to be carried out in the regions and at provincial level so that we can come to an amicable settlement of this issue. ENFORCEMENT The proper and full name of my department is the Department of Roads, Transport and Traffic Control. Therefore, we have to also control the traffic that moves on the roads that we build and maintain in the facilitation of transport. We consequently have a directorate, the Road Traffic Inspectorate (RTI) that does the traffic control as we have units that build the roads. RTI is broken into various specialized sections such as The Hazardous Chemical Unit, Search and Rescue Team, First Aid and Public Transport Law Enforcement Unit. The Public Transport Law Enforcement is commonly referred to as PTEU or Operation Shanela. This is a perfectly legal structure specializing in public transport law enforcement. This model is also being followed by other provinces so that order in the public transport sphere should prevail. We cannot allow a few disgruntled people to hold the rest of the nine million people of this province hostage as if we were back in the days of the state of emergency. If people block roads the full might of the law will have to take its place in the action. The Constitution of South Africa secures the right to protest as long as that is done peacefully and does not threaten other citizens. I am sure that we are dealing with mature business minded people who only want economic progress. I have said before and will say it again, your industry is the single biggest black economic empower sector. As government it is our duty to assist this and other entrepreneurs to prosper but we cannot do it without your cooperation. Thank you.
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