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Santaco sends a stern warning to taxi owners and drivers

Taxi drivers and owners should prepare for harsh sentences if they are found to have put the lives of passengers and other road users at risk should the Minister of Transport grant them the powers.

The South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) has had enough of taxi drivers' reckless driving and is writing to Transport Minister Dipuo Peters to grant them regulatory powers.

According to president Phillip Taaibosch, Santaco hands are tied as they cannot fully act out against both drivers and taxi owners who infringe road rules, endanger lives or harass passengers.

Taaibosch said that the complaints and media reports show that there are still taxi drivers who do not obey the road rules and they would like to be able to deal with such at the council.

He said that this call does not come as a direct response to the recent deadly Randfontein accident that claimed the lives of 15 people.

".. we still find out that there are small number of taxi drivers who continue to behave as if there is no rules which are governing," said Taaibosch.

"It is not because of the recent accident, we've been calling upon that. If you remember I think since around 2014. I've been engaging with the minister, we have been explaining even to public when it comes to the limited regulatory powers would want government to absolve to."

Taaibosch said the regulatory limitations they face includes that because they do not issue driving and operating license, they therefore cannot suspend or expel a driver or taxi owner from operating.

"... with us, where the difficulty lies that we cannot even come up with such stringent kind of measures is that the license to operate a taxi it is issued by government. So you cannot, for instance as Santaco, come out and say 'we are suspending the operation of a particular taxi operator because he has transgressed one, two, three, this operator or operator's business will now be suspended for six or seven months or he will be expelled from the industry. We don't have the powers to do that because we are not the issuer of the operating license'," said Taaibosch.

He said they would be requesting the minister to give them powers to suspend a driving or operating license.

Among others, Santaco is requesting powers of:

- Vetting taxi operators by being able to investigate where they have proper operating licenses, roadworthy vehicles (certificate of fitness) and taking actions if the operator does not have those.

- Checking whether drivers have valid drivers license,

- Checking whether drivers have valid public drivers permit,

- Checking whether the drivers are South African nationals or have a valid working permit,

And be able to take actions against those who have been found to have transgressed the regulations.

Taaibosch said that they want to be able to take actions which includes investigating, suspending and expelling a driver or a taxi owner as these will empower the council to do its job.

At the moment, Santaco can only circulate drivers' and owners' (who have transgressed) profiles around the country alerting associations to not work with them.

He said they seek these powers because "it's a normal organisational discipline that you want to instil whereby people when they are working in a company, that they have to work in a particular prescript of the company or procedures of the company" and be suspended or expelled if they go against the prescribed disciplines.

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