Minister outlines new taxi system
May 07 2008 02:07:59:933PM  - (SA)  
Papi Tshabalala

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“Transport is the heartbeat of South Africa’s economy. About 63% of commuters use taxis daily as their mode of transport. We introduced taxi recapitalisation to improve the states of the taxis countrywide hence scrapping old and unsafe taxis,” Radebe said.

He said taxi owners whose taxis are being scrapped were receiving R50 000 to buy new taxis.

“We have budgeted around R700 million towards the taxi recapitalisation programme which sees new and safer taxis being introduced,” he said.

Radebe indicated that the construction of the Thaba Bosiu and Monontsha road projects were part of government’s programme to make taxis safe.

“We have appointed emerging contractors for these projects. We also provided capacity training for them and the locals are the ones to benefit from these projects,” said the MEC for Public Works, Roads and Transport, Seiso Mohai.

The majority of taxi owners raised concerns about the taxi recapitalisation programme and bad state of the roads.

Mohai alleviated their concerns saying the provincial government was on track bettering the state of roads which taxi owners said were a factor to the damage state of taxis.

The people from Harrismith raised rumours that the N3 road passing in this town would be closed.

However, Radebe said: “I personally do not know of the closure of the N3 road.”

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