Taxi council exists for financial gain – owners

TAXI owners in the Eastern Cape have lambasted the South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) claiming it is useless and only exists for financial gain.

“All they (Santaco) want are funds from government to use for their personal gain.”

The taxi owners levelled the allegations against Santaco at the department of labour ((DoL) public hearings at the East London Labour Centre on Wednesday to review wages and conditions of employment in the hospitality industry and the taxi sector.

The nationwide consultative process began on February 28.

The taxi owners are from the Butterworth Taxi Association, Mdantsane-East London Taxi Association and Uncedo Taxi Assoc “We are suffering under Santaco’s existence – all Santaco did was to finance us with very expensive vehicles that we are now struggling to pay,” said Lulama Ntwasa from Uncedo in Mdantsane.

Provincial Santaco spokesman Misile Kinana said the allegations were baseless.

“These taxi owners are just looking for someone to blame for not being able to run their businesses properly,” said Kinana.

The taxi owners also claimed that the hearings were fruitless.

“To be honest this is just a lot of talk but when it comes to implementation the department fails,” Ntwasa claimed.

DoL provincial spokesperson Vuyokazi Mbanjwa said her department acknowledged the difficulty in enforcing the laws due to the nature of the sector.

“Taxi operators are on the road most of the time, the workers in the sector do not have a standard starting time and ending times as the case with ordinary industry.

“The impact of this is the inspector finds it difficult to do a proactive inspection but is reliant on reactive inspections.”

Mbanjwa said a study was commissioned last year to look at issues that were raised by the sector after promulgation of the sectoral determination in 2005.

“The research looked at the impact of public transport on structural changes in the taxi sector, the impact of the bus rapid transit system and taxi recapitalisation programme, the impact of the demarcation model in the current sectorial determination.”

Meanwhile, employers and employees in the hospitality sector agreed on a wage increase in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) plus 2%. “Looking at the economy which is not favourable to anyone we should stick to the CPI plus 2% to when increasing wages,” said the managing director of The Holy Hill bed and breakfast situated in Quigney, Lunga Sipayile.

However the provincial organiser of the Food and Allied Workers’ Union (Fawu) Moses Dzayana said there were many underlying issues the DoL failed to address. The public hearing to review these two sectors is to be concluded early in April.

“Once concluded the Employment Conditions Commission (ECC), a body that advises the Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant, and sectoral determinations will use the inputs collected from the public hearings to recommend the new determ said the DoL spokesperson Page Boikanyo. —