Taxi fares not going down

Johannesburg - A drop in petrol price does not warrant a decrease in taxi fares, the SA National Taxi Council (Santaco) said on Wednesday.

"If we were based on petrol and we look at the history... we'd be charging customers a lot of money by now," Santaco secretary general Philip Taaibosch said.

"The crux of the matter is we have never been pushed by the petrol price."

Taaibosch was defending the taxi industry's decision not to lessen the taxi fare because the petrol price had decreased on Wednesday.

"This does not warrant in anyway a decrease from the taxi side."

He said the decision to increase the taxi fare in May was taken because it was becoming more expensive to fix taxis and buy spare parts.

"We had to mend the taxis, which we could not afford," said Taaibosch.

"We not trying to make it hard for our customers."

Before the taxi fare hike in Gauteng the price had not been increased for almost four years, he said.

Taaibosch asked why bus and train operators were not under pressure to drop their prices when the petrol price went down.

"It's discriminatory how taxi operators are being treated... It's time now that everyone is treated the same and taxis should be treated like other public transport," he said.

"We will not be able to decrease [the taxi fare] but we will continue to meet our customers halfway."