The money that goes into Santaco will be used to fund projects that aim to improve the user experience of commuters.
Maduma said Santaco will establish provincial committees that would recommend projects to the national office.
The office would then, through its structures, decide on which projects to fund with the dividends from the deal.
"As you have seen, Santaco in Gauteng has already started vetting its drivers and training queue marshals ... the dividends will fund these types of developments as well as infrastructure projects such as the fixing of lights in ranks, building shade structures and other projects like that," he said.
Maduma said the plan was structured in such a way that when the value of the company grows, so will the dividends of the share-holding, which will have a more direct impact on the profits of taxi owners.
Head of Santaco's business arm Taxi Choice, Thulani Qwabe, said the mid- to long- term aim of the agreement would be to have a meaningful impact on the running costs of owning a taxi.
"If we can participate in the value chain as the taxi industry, what we are hoping to achieve in the medium- to long-term is to reduce the cost base of running a minibus taxi," Qwabe told Sowetan.
"When you reduce the cost base of running a minibus taxi then the commuter can benefit because taxi operators will be profitable and there will be no need to increase taxi fares when operators are profitable."
He said the deal would help the industry improve its service standards and thus commuters will have cleaner ranks, better signage and more professional drivers. The training of drivers would make for a better user experience. "Drivers will be trained on things like customer care and driving habits."
R1.7bn deal to change taxi industry
Taxi commuters can expect cleaner taxi ranks and better trained drivers and queue marshals after the biggest taxi organisation - the SA National Taxi Council (Santaco) - struck a R1.7bn empowerment deal with SA Taxi Finance.
The deal will see Santaco getting 10% of the dividends received from it.
SA Taxi Finance spokesperson Maroba Maduma said the deal was financed by R1.2bn from Standard Bank and Futuregrowth Asset Management, while the rest came from a vendor financing deal between Santaco and the SA Taxi Finance.
The money that goes into Santaco will be used to fund projects that aim to improve the user experience of commuters.
Maduma said Santaco will establish provincial committees that would recommend projects to the national office.
The office would then, through its structures, decide on which projects to fund with the dividends from the deal.
"As you have seen, Santaco in Gauteng has already started vetting its drivers and training queue marshals ... the dividends will fund these types of developments as well as infrastructure projects such as the fixing of lights in ranks, building shade structures and other projects like that," he said.
Maduma said the plan was structured in such a way that when the value of the company grows, so will the dividends of the share-holding, which will have a more direct impact on the profits of taxi owners.
Head of Santaco's business arm Taxi Choice, Thulani Qwabe, said the mid- to long- term aim of the agreement would be to have a meaningful impact on the running costs of owning a taxi.
"If we can participate in the value chain as the taxi industry, what we are hoping to achieve in the medium- to long-term is to reduce the cost base of running a minibus taxi," Qwabe told Sowetan.
"When you reduce the cost base of running a minibus taxi then the commuter can benefit because taxi operators will be profitable and there will be no need to increase taxi fares when operators are profitable."
He said the deal would help the industry improve its service standards and thus commuters will have cleaner ranks, better signage and more professional drivers. The training of drivers would make for a better user experience. "Drivers will be trained on things like customer care and driving habits."