Cape Town - Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula engaged with taxi operators at the Cape Town station taxi rank in a bid to clear their concerns around the Covid-19 Taxi Relief Fund (TRF) scheme, which has created confusion and uncertainty between taxi owners and their drivers.
Mbalula embarked on a roadshow with taxi associations, encouraging operators in the province to apply for the funding.
The TRF is a financial support scheme introduced by the Department of Transport in collaboration with the National Empowerment Fund (NEF) to help mitigate the impact of the Covid19 pandemic in the taxi industry.
It is expected to compensate taxi operators, drivers, queue marshals and staff working at the offices of the taxi associations.
Mbalula said they had noticed a lack of applications from the operators.
“They are applying but not faster. They probably think they have the whole year. I have explained that we do not have the whole year. The money allocated has a time frame,” he said.
He said more than R1 billion has been allocated to TRF as a once-off payment to taxi operators to provide relief for the Covid-19 impact on the sector, as a consequence of restrictions that had a devastating effect on the industry, as with many other sectors.
The application process for operators to access the fund was officially launched in January, with the window period remaining open until midnight on February 28.
Mbalula said some of it involved the City, and he would plan a meeting with mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis to raise the concerns he received from taxi operators within the city.
SA National Taxi Council (Santaco) provincial chairperson Nazeem Abdurahman said they were well satisfied with the new approach with regard to the TRF.
Abdurahman said at first operators had a few challenges on working with the website, but that was resolved when they had to assign people to assist the operators.
Congress of Democratic Taxi Association (Codeta) spokesperson Andile Khanyi said Mbalula and his department had promised them the relief since last year but nothing had materialised. Cape Amalgamated Taxi Association (Cata) secretary Mandla Hermanus said they have adopted a waitand-see approach.
“We are happy that some of the initial requirements were removed and simplified,” he said.
Hermanus said they hoped the application process would be easy for many of their operators who were not familiar with the technology.