Transport minister Barbara Creecy said a new raft of national transport regulations would ensure e-hailing platforms such as Uber were safer for South Africans, while law enforcement would continue to respond to tensions between e-hailing drivers and taxi operators.
She was replying to questions from MPs in the National Assembly on Wednesday afternoon. Her remarks follow an attack on e-hailing drivers by taxi operators near Maponya Mall. It also follows waves of e-hailing passengers being targeted by criminals during their rides.
EFF MP Nontando Nolutshungu asked Creecy what urgent and robust measures her department would implement to protect e-hailing drivers and ensure safe coexistence with the taxi industry, especially at flashpoints like Maponya Mall.
The minister said the department was publishing the national land transport regulations.
These regulations will incorporate e-hailing platforms, complete with special operating licence requirements and safety and security standards. In the meantime, joint law enforcement and security operations at a national and provincial level remained alert.
“Law enforcement agencies are prepared to address any criminal activity and possible violence between taxi operators and e-hailing drivers. NATJOINTS and PROVJOINTS are on high alert and ready to co-ordinate interventions as needed.”
She said the government was always prepared to bring disputing parties together to negotiate past the impasse. Continuous platforms for mediation and dialogue are essential to contribute to a sustainable and integrated public transport system, she said.
EFF MP Mazwikayise Blose asked what was being done to ensure cohesion between taxi drivers and e-hailing operators while the regulations were being finalised. Creecy said there were existing laws and regulations that applied to e-hailing platforms.
“Before the promulgation of these regulations, it’s not a situation where there was no regulation for e-hailing drivers. Gauteng did have a permitting system. But I think with this new framework, these regulations obviously have the force of law.”
Asked what the department was doing to allow a South African-made e-hailing app to compete with platforms like Uber and Bolt, she said the regulations extend to e-hailing platforms as mobile phone applications as well as transport services.
“What is important to say is that the regulations themselves also regulate e-hailing apps. Of course, we know that the taxi industry itself has developed an e-hailing app, because they want to respond to the times and to the way in which commuters would want to call for services. I think that the regulations do cover the nature of e-hailing regulations.”
DA MP Chris Hunsinger asked the minister if she believed the stability and harmony needed to be built into regulations that worked towards a shared operations model in line with proposed amendments to the National Land Transport Act.
“I think there’s always room to improve legislation. But I think, at the end of the day, conflict is not an abstract issue. It is something that happens between human beings because of constrained economic circumstances or because there is competition for particular routes and particular passengers.”
She said conflict could best be resolved through mediation and education, and that regulation and enforcement should only be considered when these fail.
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