AYABONGA CAWE: Taxi industry has a place in the debate on radical change

Minibus taxis transport most South Africans to their destinations every day. After navigating the driver’s choice of music and the politics of "four-four masihlalisane", passengers pass their rand to the front.

The money that passes from hand to grubby hand, row by row, is counted by the taxi mathematicians in the "golden circle" seat in the front — it is the fruit of countless sweat.

These same rand, in collectively organised hands are powerful. It is surprising then, why so little of the radical economic transformation narrative has landed in taxi ranks, on the tongues of queue marshals, rank hawkers and backyard "bush mechanics".

It might be that the conversation, its tenor and its leitmotif, revolves only around elites with articulate English.

The taxi industry is an unintended consequence of National Party planning.

It is a cruel reminder of the South African public transport conundrum; those faced with the longest commutes are also those in low-wage, low-productivity employment faced with increasing vulnerability. Not by some divine providence, but by historic design.

But conversely, it also presents one of the greatest opportunities for economic and structural change.

The issues are plenty. Taxi owners argue that they are "sitting on the bench" in the vehicle-manufacturing, rubber and tyre-production, components, financing and insurance sectors, despite being an influential consumer segment.

The Toyota Quantum, the working asset of choice, was just too expensive, the South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) said last week. It provided examples of transactions where the total amount paid for the Quantum through financing options was more than four times the vehicle’s cash value.

Santaco argues that the financial services sector still regards the taxi industry as a dangerous and undesirable risk and they price their debt accordingly.

This is a classic case of the benefactor of the "piper" not calling the tune. How?

This was the frustration expressed by Moses of Roodepoort, directed at the president of Santaco, Phillip Taaibosch: "The taxi industry has the capital … has the money, you guys have the masses and the problem that I see, is, you want to beg for these people to give you certain things, instead of you determining the terms of the business transaction you want to have … tell them what you want ... you have the money. You have passengers that pay on a daily basis."

With spending of more than R2bn on fuel annually and R6bn on spares, surely we must ask why the taxi industry, operationally overseen by black people, doesn’t have enough "skin" in the game downstream?

Moses’ contention may have merit; is the industry reluctant to use its bargaining power?

Surely this is a case where the militancy of the picket line must give impetus to the boardroom negotiation.

generational sacrifice of investment, agitation and risk would have multiplier effects beyond the Noord, Wanderers and Bree Street taxi ranks

The protest must make visible how the organised formations of the taxi industry negotiate with the supplier industry.

It must do so alongside the market inquiry to be conducted by the Competition Commission, which will be looking at the allocation of transport subsidies — the minibus taxi industry receives none.

Santaco’s requests for seed capital from the government may fall on deaf ears.

The real lever at their disposal are the rand they collect daily and where those are spent.

A willingness for collective "investment" when downstream opportunities present themselves is a necessary condition for broadening participation in the ecosystem in a "radical" way — one whose emergence and continued existence is the result of the enterprise and needs of black people.

Yet the industry’s owners and workers have no stake in its high-value segments.

A generational sacrifice of investment, agitation and risk would have multiplier effects beyond the Noord, Wanderers and Bree Street taxi ranks.

One hopes the governing party’s policy conversation at the end of June will give those multipliers their due attention.

 • Cawe, a development economist, served on the national minimum wage advisory panel.