Q&A with Santaco on taxi council's Gauteng shutdown

Hasn't the government agreed to give you relief funding?

They have agreed, but the relief is long overdue. As days go by, operators find themselves in a predicament. This is why associations in Alex decided to hike fares by 172%.

Is that still on the table?

No. They've agreed they need to review those prices. Commuters won't be able to afford them.

So why threaten them?

For reasons operators find themselves under huge pressure.

So do your passengers, surely?

That's why we've requested all structures of the taxi industry to be reasonable.

Were the threats intended to blackmail the government into giving you relief funding?

I'm not too sure if that is blackmailing. They're simply saying to government they've lost confidence in this relief fund which is taking longer than we anticipated.

This is an industry that's worth about R90bn a year. Surely they should be able to survive a couple of lean months .

That shouldn't be the argument. Every business, even your established entities, complain that there is no money. There are huge operational costs that have to be dealt with.

Why should the industry be given a subsidy when it doesn't pay tax?

That's an opinion you hold. It has not been proven.

Does the taxi industry pay tax?

Every legal taxi operator in the country needs to have a tax clearance certificate. If you've got so many taxis on the road that have operating licences and then you say to me we don't pay tax, I'm not too sure where you get that from.

Don't operators receive their money from the drivers in cash?

That does not justify your perception that they do not pay tax.

Do they send audited receipts to the South African Revenue Service (Sars)?

How operators collect their money from drivers and so on is a non-debatable issue. I'm saying to you Sars knows how many taxis are on the road. If they believe we are not declaring all the money that we must declare, they have all the intelligence to pursue those people.

Why should you get a subsidy when you're not regulated?

It is not fair to say we're not regulated when there's a law .

Would you agree that in spite of that, it is largely unregulated?

There's an act that specifically speaks to how the taxi industry must be run. It is not for the industry to enforce that law. It is a government act. If it is not properly implemented, that is a government problem, not a taxi industry issue. You can say to government you are not regulating the industry, but there is a law that we comply with.

Why are your drivers among the most exploited workers in SA?

I'm not too sure what you mean by "most exploited".

Why are so many of your drivers paid below the minimum wage?

You do know that not all routes make the same revenue per day, per week?

Why aren't their working hours regulated?

This is one of the things that, as Santaco, we want to move into.