This is the view of Gauteng transport MEC Ismail Vadi after a week of violent protests by taxi drivers and owners in the province.
Speaking to The Times at the official opening of the refurbished N12 highway, Vadi said: "The National Land Transport Act draws a distinction between a minibus, a midi-bus and a bus. A minibus can carry 10 to 16 passengers; a midibus 17 to 35. Once that legal distinction has been made, the national policy framework is that we will subsidise buses only. Once that decision is taken at national level, I cannot change it. No MEC in the country can change that because it is national policy" Vadi said.
Vadi announced last week that Autopax, a subsidiary of the Passenger Rail Agency of SA, would operate for three months the routes covered by eight contracts abandoned by Putco. Putco said the routes were unprofitable. But the minibus taxi industry demanded that Vadi use the opportunity to grant the industry rights to operate on the routes and consider subsidising taxis.
Since the announcement, Autopax buses have been targeted in violent protests. The police have deployed more officers to the affected routes, including that from Mamelodi to the Tshwane inner city. Tshwane officials have met representatives of the taxi industry in an attempt to develop a business proposal for consideration by Vadi.
Vadi said the taxi industry could take over the routes abandoned by Putco if it were successful in an open bidding process.
"If the industry wants that share of the bus market they have to create a corporate entity. They can either acquire buses themselves, set up an operation and then tender as an operator. Or, when I open negotiations for all our bus contracts, they can come in and say: 'We are an interested party' and we will include them in the process. But that does not mean that at the end of the day, they will get the contracts" Vadi said.
A spokesman for the SA National Taxi Council in Gauteng, Ralph Jones, disputed Vadi's view, maintaining that the National Land Transport Act allows for subsidies to all those providing public transport services.
'The act stipulates that existing public transport services, including taxis and buses, be incorporated into an integrated public network in terms of contracts negotiated, subsidised or commercial contracts with the municipal planning authority. This is per section 41(2) of the act" said Jones.
Source: The Times
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