Taxi wars in South Africa

Minibus taxi Taxi statistics
People using Taxi service each day	14 million
Officially registered minibus taxis	200,000
Average taxis per owner	7
Avg monthly kilometres driven by a taxi	8,000
Avg number of passengers transported monthly per vehicle	3,161
Avg time spent daily in a taxi by a passenger	65 min
Avg number of trips per passenger per day	2.3
Data as of 2006

The term taxi war is usually used to refer to the turf wars fought between taxi associations and individual minibus taxi drivers in South Africa from the late 1980s onwards. These taxi wars are still raging to the present day.

The multi-billion rand minibus taxi industry carries over 60% of South Africa's commuters. Generally speaking, these commuters are all of the lower economic class. Wealthy individuals drive their own cars for safety and convenience. The industry is almost entirely made up of 16-seater commuter Toyota HiAce buses, which are sometimes unsafe or not roadworthy. Minibus taxi drivers are well known for their disregard for the road rules and their proclivity for dangerously overloading their vehicles with passengers.

Due to an effectively unregulated market and the fierceness of competition for passengers and lucrative routes, taxi operators band together to form local and national associations. These associations soon exhibited mafia-like tactics, including the hiring of hit-men and all-out gang warfare. These associations also engaged in anti-competitive Price Fixing.

Causes

Prior to 1987, the taxi industry was highly regulated and controlled, with black taxi operators being refused permits. Sixteen-seater minibuses were illegal to operate as taxis. After 1987, the industry was rapidly deregulated, leading to an influx of new minibus taxi operators, keen to make money from the high demand for this service. Because the industry was largely unregulated and the official regulating bodies so corrupt, the industry quickly became criminal in nature.

The economic drivers for the wars were intertwined with political unrest around the time of the fall of apartheid in 1994. Commuters were often the target of political violence not necessarily related to the taxi industry itself. Often, the warring factions involved were from opposing political parties, such as the IFP and ANC. In the years leading up to the abolition of apartheid, the government is believed to have actively encouraged this violence so as to destabilise its political opposition. For example, in 1998, 13 police officers were charged with complicity in taxi violence.

Timeline

Pre-1977 (state-owned monopoly)

The Motor Carrier Transportation Act of 1930 prohibited transportation of goods and passengers by road for profit without a permit from the Local Road Transportation Board (LRTB). The transport industry was essentially a state monopoly held by the South African Transport Service (SATS).

Taxi owners operating outside the jurisdiction of the LRTB were operating illegally. These taxi operators started banding together into local informal associations.

1977–1987 (impetus towards deregulation)

Along with growing political pressure, the Soweto Riots of 1976 prompted the then National Party government to form a commission of inquiry into the transport industry. In 1977, the Van Breda Commission of Inquiry recommended freer competition and less regulation in the industry. The commission realised that the transport industry was becoming highly politicised and that it was no longer in the government's best interests to participate in the transport market.

In 1979, the first national association of black taxi drivers was established: the South African Black Taxi Association (SABTA). In the years to come, rival organisations, such as the South African Long Distance Taxi Association (SALDTA), would be formed. This body, along with other political bodies at the time, started putting pressure on government to deregulate the industry. Impetus towards a free-market economy grew stronger in the late 1980s.

1987–1994 (deregulation)

The White Paper on Transport Policy, tabled in January 1987, in conjunction with the Transport Deregulation Act of 1988 effectively deregulated the entire taxi industry overnight, making minibus taxis legal. This change gave birth to the taxi industry as it exists in its current form. The permit-issuing process was rife with corruption; permits were essentially given away to favoured applicants. For all intents and purposes, there was no control whatsoever.

In the absence of official controls, the now-growing taxi organisations started to flex their muscles, using their influence to make more money to intimidate the opposition. The authorities did little or nothing to stop the violence.

1994–1999 (post-apartheid)

In contrast to expectations, the violence intensified after the fall of apartheid.

In 1995, the government established the National Taxi Task Team (NTTT) to arrive at a solution to the taxi violence. In 1996, the NTTT's first report recommended the immediate re-regulation of the taxi industry.

The government's attempts at re-regulation were actively resisted by the now extremely powerful "mother" organisations that controlled the taxi industry; this led to an escalation of violence between 1998 and 1999.

1999–present (recapitalisation)

The government intended The National Land Transport Transition Act, Act No 22 of 2000 to help formalise and re-regulate the now out-of-control taxi industry. Along with new legislation, the government instituted a four-year re-capitalisation scheme in the same year. The intention of this scheme was to replace the 15-seater minibuses with 18- and 35-seater minibuses. There have been a number of delays in this process. Firstly, the government has been waiting for the taxi industry to form one cohesive association that can speak on behalf of taxi owners; secondly, there is a lot of disagreement from taxi owners as to the nature that the re-capitalisation scheme should take.

One major sticking point is the possibility of job losses caused by the uptake of the larger buses. The government attempted to do research into the extent of the prospective job losses in 2000, but the research team was threatened, and research was abandoned.

In 2004, the minister of transport released a revised recapitalisation timeline, which was scheduled to start in 2005 and end seven years later. At the time of writing, the TRP had started, although plagued by delays.

According to the Transport Department, 1,400 old and unsafe taxis have been scrapped, with 80% of the taxi fleet expected to be recapitalised by the 2009/10 financial year.

Death toll

Taxi-related violence death toll

	Number of deaths	Number of injuries
1991	123	156
1992	184	293
1993	330	526
1994	123	292
1995	197	282
1996	243	331
1997	243	331
1998	246	343
1999	258	287

See also

• Glasgow Ice Cream Wars

General:

• Crime in South Africa