Taxis worse than before - union

Johannesburg - Government should review the taxi recapitalisation programme, the National Taxi Alliance (NTA) said on Wednesday.

The programme had left many taxi operators in worse positions than they were before, NTA general secretary Alpheus Mlalazi told a meeting with alliance members in Johannesburg.

"We demand the review of the programme in its entirety," he said.

Mlalazi accused the taxi scrapping agency, Siyazi Consortium, of being in cahoots with rival taxi organisation, the SA National Taxi Council (Santaco).

He claimed Siyazi offered Santaco 30% of the shares in the consortium.

"Siyazi's contract is due to end this month [August]. We wrote to [former] transport minister Ben Martins before he was removed from the portfolio, that Siyazi's contract not be renewed... because there is corruption within this scrapping business."

According to Mlalazi, the agency favoured one taxi alliance over another.

"We found that even trailers and VW Golfs are being scrapped. This is why over R7bn has so far been spent on taxi recapitalisation even though only 30% of taxis have been scrapped."

The NTA received a reply from Martins, who said he was not part of the agreement between Santaco and Siyazi, but that the law should be followed.

Mlalazi said the NTA wrote to Siyazi informing them about Martins' response, but had had no reply.

The NTA demanded that authorities stop impounding their member associations' taxis, the bus rapid transit system be scrapped, that modern taxi ranks be built, and that all their members' cancelled operating permits be re-instated.

The organisation was planning marches to hand over a memorandum of grieviences to the transport ministry and the SA Local Government Association.