31 January 2000
South Africa's taxi industry and commuters responded positively to the Taxi Recapitalisation Exhibition held in Johannesburg last week from Wednesday to Friday. More than 25 000 people visited the show to view and experience the vehicles that are currently being considered to replace the country's existing fleet of minibus taxis over the next four years.
Opinions of a large number of the visitors were recorded by a research team, and this input will be used to assist Government in arriving at their final decision as to who the business to supply the vehicles will be allocated to. This will be announced in April this year and the first vehicles will become available to the industry in October 2000.
According to Suren Singh, Director of Special Projects at the Department of Trade and Industry, protest action by a group of taxi drivers and their presentation of a memorandum to a representative of the Minister of Trade and Industry added to logistics problems on the first public day. 'Despite this, an unexpectedly large number of interested people from the taxi industry and commuters, attended the exhibition and enthusiastically participated in evaluating the vehicles on show. The biggest problem we had on the Thursday was easing the way of the thousands of visitors through the exhibition,' he says.
Friday again saw a steady stream of visitors and measures to ensure less congestion and facilitate their enjoyment of and contribution to the event proved highly successful. The Minister of Transport, Mr Dullah Omar, also visited the exhibition on Friday and said that the reaction of the visitors was a strong indication of wide interest in and support for the Taxi Recapitalisation Project. 'It was very important to us that the industry and other interested parties were given a hands-on opportunity to experience the 18- and 35-seater products under consideration as it is our sincere wish to consider the preferences of the industry and users in our decision making process. With people from all parts of the country having been amongst the visitors, we are confident that we can now take the next step in the process with the confidence that we have the support of the vast majority of the interested parties. The Taxi Recapitalisation Project, which was started five years ago, will now accelerate and South African will soon start sampling the benefits of the programme,' he said.
January 2000
For further information contact Karin Pearce
Taxi Recapitalisation Project Manager, on 083 680 7031