Taxi Peace Summit aims to 'clean the image of the taxi industry'

Cape Talk's Lester Kiewit chats to Mandla Hermanus, the Western Cape Chairperson of the South African National Taxi Council (SANTACO).

Listen to their conversation in the audio clip below:

Scores of people in the Western Cape rely on the minibus taxi industry daily. 

Despite the industry being worth billions, it remains largely informal and prone to conflict. 

On Monday, the South African National Taxi Council (SANTACO) in the Western Cape hosted a Taxi Peace Summit to address the ongoing challenges facing this sector. 

The summit brought together key stakeholders from government, law enforcement, civil society, and the taxi industry. 

The goal was to identify the root causes of conflict, promote safety and professionalism, and lay the groundwork for a more stable and collaborative public transport system in the province.

"One of the things we came up with is the establishment of peace ambassadors from all the eight regions in the province; people who will be on the ground who will be trained in conflict resolution so that we are able to identify things that might trigger violence before violence happens so that we are not only responding after the fact so that we can be proactive and prevent things from happening."

- Mandla Hermanus, SANTACO Western Cape Chairperson

Hermanus recognises that crime has become an inherent issue within the sector. 

He emphasises that implementing digital systems and professionalising taxi associations are essential for altering the industry's perception and operations.

"One of the triggers is actually this cash that is flowing between ranks and amongst taxi associations - the collections of money, which leads to certain individuals then wanting to exert fear on the associations because they want to control the funds...this also leads to some criminal elements who want to use the minibus taxi industry to clean up illicit gains, people who are involved in drug dealings and other things. We are saying, if we move to a cashless system, then we might be able to eliminate some of those challenges…One of the biggest challenges is that there's always a trust deficit between the driver and the taxi owner..."

- Mandla Hermanus, SANTACO Western Cape Chairperson

"We do realise that there might be individuals who will resist these changes because obviously it will affect their own illegal operations, but the broader members of the minibus taxi industry want to move in this direction." 

- Mandla Hermanus, SANTACO Western Cape Chairperson

"We want to clean the image of the taxi industry."

- Mandla Hermanus, SANTACO Western Cape Chairperson

Scroll up to listen to the full conversation.