Greetings

Subsequent to our Annual General Meeting that was held at Sun City in June 25 – 27, 2007, the SANTACO leadership went on to roadshows visiting thus all the 8 provinces except for Gauteng where such a roadshow would also be held. Without necessarily explaining these roadshows, one of the points raised by the leadership was the provinces should also move towards holding their AGMs.

This applies to Regions and Associations. We were saying this mainly because SANTACO was founded on democratic principles and therefore, we need to continue to present the industry in this fashion as the only means of accounting to the people who put us in office. So, the AGM hosted by the region today is a part of this principle and it is for this reason that I’m standing here on behalf of SANTACO supporting the event.

But I also need to clarify that holding such AGMs does not necessarily write off any challenges or problems that could be there for any one reason or the other, but it is the responsibility of every delegate present here today, to use this platform to express and represent the views of his/her Association in a constructive and industry building manner to resolve such challenges and problems. The purpose of the AGM really, is to account and review the mandate of the people and on the basis of all the reports presented, begin to jointly craft the future together. It is my strongest belief that this AGM agrees with me and would debate these issues in this positive spirit.

The introduction of the Bus Rapid Transport system, the Gautrain and the monorail are telling examples of how threatened our business is to the changing times of our economy. But having noted that transport is the second largest contributor to our economy after communications, it means we as the largest carrier of the commuting public, we need to respond to these changes in a manner that creates better opportunities for our businesses. Hence, as you would remember at the AGM, we strongly spoke of diversification where we want to aggressively penetrate the transport sector in totality. It is for this reason that we are seriously investigating all these forms of new innovations and see what financial returns they hold firstly, for the taxi industry and secondly but most importantly those immediately affected by such changes. The latter are the actual drivers of our decisions because we present our arguments strictly considerate of how their businesses will be affected. As we shift and migrate our Associations into registered corporates, the partnerships we may create out of these innovations will benefit them effectively more and ensure their fair representation in the joint ventures. But also allow me to warn this AGM that it is imperative that in all consultative processes that government engages taxi structures on, you need to be weary of how the outcomes of your discussions can advantage government to implement these concepts much to the detriment of the same operators they have consulted with in the initial stages. We need to find some better mechanism of dealing with these processes and ensure that your superior structures are on board because then we would be doing this in unison for the betterment of the taxi industry.

We therefore need to take the baton and become self-initiative such that as they present their thoughts about us to us, they find us on the move with our own plans. But we can only achieve this through a shared vision and collective responsibility. It is important that the ownership of the taxi industry in those who give us mandate, because the industry exist as a result of the trust they put when they elect leadership of their structures. The President has during these recent roadshows underlined to the attending operators that, in this age that we do business, it is important that move our choices of leadership on the basis of competence. Truly part of failures on our part in our different structures, has been leadership challenges and it this has exposed the taxi industry and thus leaving it in the hands of individuals with vested interest or even government to dictate on what best to suit the public without looking into what best suit the industry as a business. We therefore need to take this change in good spirit and through our AGMs and elections ensure that our structures reflect what we seek to achieve as business.

We are also aware that communication is a challenge in the taxi industry. But we need to work jointly to see how best it can be overcome. Part of our new calendar plan is to take our roadshows to Regions and to some degrees Associations. We will also use events where SANTACO is invited as another platform to communicate national issues and position. I further wish to advise you to visit our website on www.santaco.co.za to also keep yourself updated. Very soon, our magazine called Taxi-trade will be in circulation where in this most accessible manner, our members will be able to interact with the leadership. This we believe will help tremendously in addressing our communication challenges.

Thank you