Recalcitrant taxi industry could win fight with govt

It appears that the government is playing hardball with the recalcitrant taxi industry. While it hands out relief packages totalling R1.135 billion, it won’t give money to any operator who is not “legal”.

That means that if a taxi operator wants money from you and I – taxpayers in other words – he or she will have to register for, and pay, tax, just like we do.

In addition, the vehicles and drivers will have to be licensed and roadworthy and legally permitted to operate – the same laws the rest of us must comply with – before any of the bailout cash is handed over.

Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula, in announcing the relief plan, gave an indication that the aid was by no means a magnanimous gesture, saying that “reaching agreement within government” was “a difficult process that involved extensive lobbying and convincing the relevant authorities on the importance and need for this fund”.

He also revealed that, clearly, the government has decided to use the Covid-19 crisis as a way to transform the country and achieve the things it couldn’t over the past 26 years.

And one of the aspects of our economy it realises it needs to rectify is the taxi business.

However, it will not be plain sailing. Already, according to Mbalula, taxi organisations have indicated that they are “vehemently opposed” to linking the support packages with the process to regularise the industry.

Or to put in it a way the rest of us understand – and have come to expect from this lawless industry – “we want things to continue as they are”. That means remaining beyond the pale as their own mafia.

Without wanting to prejudge what will happen, we see an inevitable government climb-down because the country doesn’t need a threat to national security on top of a national disaster.

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