OPINIONISTA: Subsidies and relief packages won’t help to restructure the minibus taxi industry

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Jacob Zuma’s stolen decade has not only limited the options of Finance Minister Tito Mboweni, but has crippled the ability of South Africa to confront the structural realities of our economy, hastened the demise of rail transport, and hindered meaningful reform of the taxi industry.

There is an urgent need to ensure that the governance gaps and organisational capacity within Prasa are urgently dealt with, although the transport ministry has not yet appointed a permanent board, and the, Prasa’s administrator confirmed five key appointments, including that of chief executives at Prasa Rail, Prasa Technical and Autopax.

Mbalula is currently offering taxi operators R5,000 each in terms of Covid-19 relief. This is allocated in Mboweni’s budget adjustment in the form of R1,135 billion as “a once-off payment for all licenced taxi operators, provided that they are tax-registered and drivers are registered for unemployment insurance”. The taxi industry is demanding more and anthis week abandoned their vehicles, intimidated fellow motorists and blocked highways, leaving commuters across Gauteng stranded.

Critically, President Cyril Ramaphosa has highlighted the value of bringing social partners to the table, and the need for working carefully at establishing a social compact that includes all relevant roleplayers to ensure that we are able to implement real structural changes.

None of this work will simply happen overnight – we will need to confront the elephants in the room, particularly as we need to start developing a real strategy to not simply appropriate public funding once more for the formalisation of the minibus taxi industry.

 

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