These guys are killing my business, cries taxi owner
‘You cannot regulate others and turn a blind eye on an international giant’
FOR two decades John Ramaema* has survived running a metered taxi business at the airport, sending his children to University and putting bread on the table.
However, business wasn’t always good for the Tembisabased taxicab owner who, after being retrenched from a hotel chain, used his money to buy his first car, to run it as a metered taxi.
He ran into financial trouble a couple of times, with the banks threatening to repossess his cars as he struggled to make ends meet, after the introduction of the Gautrain saw many of his clients switch.
Now, he claims his business is at the tipping point of ruin, with Uber being behind his impending doom. The metered taxis, he said, are getting squeezed by Gautrain on one side and Uber on the other.
In March, Ramaema and at least 120 other members of the OR Tambo International Airport Taxi Association (Oriata) entered into an contractual agreement with the Airports Company of SA (Acsa) to operate from the facility. A prerequisite of the contract was that metered taxi owners had to sell their older cars and purchase new ones, in the hope of a “flourishing business”.
“What has since happened is that we are now not only battling with illegal taxis but with Uber, with its drivers sneaking in and out of the airport to fetch people as they please. This begs the question, why did we have to tender for this con- tract, only to be left unprotected by the authorities?” he said. “We pay a fee to Acsa to operate at the airport, and our operating licences prohibit us from going all over the country, as they are route-specific.”
The grumble is that Uber is playing by a different set of rules and, if left unregulated, it will lead to chaos. Ramaema complained that, while he was now sitting with debt of almost R1 million for his three cars, a huge chunk of what he considered to be a job is now gone.
“Why go all this long route of compliance with operating per mits requirements and contract that went public yet end up with this burden? Is our gover nment so desperate to look world-class with this Uber that they are even willing to shut down economic opportunity to locals who’ve always been marginalised?” he asked.
“Our government is very reactive. How could they have not foreseen this threat in changing times?” Instead of giving in to Uber, Ramaema said, the government could encourage local developers to counter that and work with local private transport owners.
“I am wondering how our authorities can miss transport trends that could impact on our system and fail to prepare for that. Our policy makers are really napping,” he added.
“You cannot regulate others and turn a blind eye on an international giant.
“Then there should be no metered taxi association; it should be an open market with no regulation.” Sounds like a solution, right there.
* Not his real name