GEORDIN HILL-LEWIS | ‘Why taxis? Why now?’ Here’s why, Prof Jansen

“Why now?” asks Jonathan Jansen, as part of a false premise that the City of Cape Town has only just begun impounding taxis for electoral gain (TimesLIVE Premium, August 16).

It is important to state upfront that the city impounds on average 30 taxis a day, as well as many other private and commercial vehicles, and has been doing so for a long time. Impoundments are often the only viable way of achieving driver behaviour change, as traffic fines are largely ignored until arrest warrants are issued — and this is particularly so among taxi drivers.

When I took office, it was the first issue raised by Santaco in our first meeting. At the time, and every time since then, I have said the same thing: this is the easiest thing to stop — if drivers obey the law and respect the safety of their passengers, not a single vehicle will be impounded. So long as many drivers flagrantly break the law and endanger their passengers and other road users, then impoundments will have to remain an effective part of our enforcement toolbox. I also told them at the time that they are welcome to challenge us in court, as the peaceful and correct mechanism to resolve disputes in a democratic society.

Certainly, Cape Town has chosen to pursue stricter enforcement of existing national traffic laws in our jurisdiction because it is the right thing to do in a country with some of the worst road death statistics in the world.

We want to prevent the devastation caused by horror crashes involving minibus taxis that have rocked our city, such as on May 30 when six children were killed in Mitchells Plain in a scholar transport accident.

We have also, through amendments to Cape Town’s traffic bylaw, extended impoundments to private vehicles too, while public transport vehicles continue to be impounded under the National Land Transport Act (NLTA).

The agreement accepted by Santaco after eight days of violent disruption was virtually the same as the one on the table when the strike was less than 24 hours old.

If anything, it is a strengthened agreement that introduces new protocols, including a 36-hour notice period and escalation mechanism directly to the premier and myself, so that a strike is never again called in the middle of a working day, stranding many thousands of commuters.

We are deeply saddened at the loss of life during the violent strike, and deplore the constant use of violence as a tool of negotiation across South Africa by the taxi industry.

Since then, the courts have affirmed the legality of the city’s road safety enforcement, and the strike-ending agreement, by dismissing Santaco’s attempted interdict against impoundments, and acceding to our request for the agreement to become an order of court.

With the shift from violent disruption to the use of lawful, peaceful and democratic means of dispute resolution, constructive dialogue now continues in the minibus taxi task team. The objective is to finalise a standard operating procedure to guide enforcement actions on our roads and the discretionary powers afforded to traffic officials under the NLTA.

Our priority is to ensure that offences affecting road safety continue to correctly be dealt with by impoundment as the law foresees, and the task team will affirm which of the 40 or so conditions attached to operating licences are fineable or impoundable under the law.

Prof Jansen incorrectly asserts that the taxi strike saga was the result of a kragdadige clampdown on taxis. This analysis is superficial. He also erroneously points to a filmed incident of SAPS and municipal officers breaking a vehicle’s windows to gain access on Thursday August 3. Context is important — those officers were in pursuit of suspects who had locked themselves inside a taxi and failed to obey several lawful instructions to get out, after live ammunition was allegedly fired at officers by those suspects.

Prof Jansen goes on to lament that “there is too little real interest in black lives to keep this show of enforcement going”, but we will prove him wrong over time. We are determined to ensure safer roads for all users, especially those who are poor and depend on public transport. That is also why we are fighting for the devolution of passenger rail to the metro so we can get the trains running again.

We are determined to see constructive reforms to the minibus taxi industry, including means of formally incorporating this into integrated public transport models, as has been done with MyCiTi N2 Express. I am determined to see taxi drivers protected by labour legislation, which would end the current incentives to break the law because they need to squeeze in as many trips as possible to earn a basic living. 

In Cape Town, an important precedent has been set that there is nothing to gain through lawlessness and violence and that the rule of law is paramount, even as it hangs by a thread in the rest of our country.

This lays an important foundation for commuter safety and protection of the vulnerable from lawlessness on our roads while enabling a pathway towards broader public transport reforms to the benefit of all in our city.

*Geordin Hill-Lewis is Mayor of Cape Town.