Transport minister Barbara Creecy is making all the right noises regarding the future regulation of the public transport industry to encourage cooperation and reduce instances of the kind of conflicts that led to the killing of an e-hailing driver in Soweto recently.
In an interview published this past weekend by Sowetan’s sister newspaper, the Sunday Times, she reconfirmed her plans to introduce new regulations that would govern e-hailing services and ease tensions between this form of public transportation and the minibus taxi industry.
Minibus taxi owners, who transport the majority of commuters daily in the country, have often complained that the non-existence of clear rules for the new players in the public transport space has led to the mushrooming of unregulated operators who are taking market share from their industry.
If Creecy has her way, e-hailing services would soon be branded, making it easy for them to be identifiable, and have operating licences that stipulate geographical areas in which they can only operate.
There are several other proposed regulations, most of them aimed at ensuring the safety of passengers. All of these proposed moves are to be welcomed as the non-regulation of the sector had heightened tensions with the minibus taxi industry and, in turn, put the lives of innocent civilians at risk.
We also welcome the minister’s commitment to work with the Gauteng, Western Cape, and hopefully other provincial governments, to promote a system in which commuters can move seamlessly from one mode of public transport to another, as is done in a number of metros across the world.
Such moves would lead to greater cooperation and less competition between passenger train services, bus services, minibus services and other forms of public transport.
However, while we believe that all these moves would lead to better customer experience for ordinary citizens, we do believe that if such efforts are not accompanied by a clear government plan to root out violent criminal elements from the industry, safety will remain a major concern.
It is therefore imperative that, as Creecy and her department try to encourage cooperation through new regulations, her colleagues in the criminal justice cluster should be doing all in their power to expose and isolate those who are fueling violence in the sector.
The best way to demonstrate that they are doing that would be to catch the killers of Mthokozisi Mvelase, the young e-hailing driver killed at Maponya Mall last month, just three days into his new job.
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