It is with the greatest pleasure that after the first AGM held at Sun City, since my inception we reconvene again as the taxi business to re-look and do serious post mortem to the activities that took at Sun City in the month of June 2007. We have called for these provincial roadshows as SANTACO, because we believe you can better tell us where to from here now that we have had our festival of ideas.

But equally I must say, the AGM has to the leadership been an experience and testimony of a serious SWOT analysis of this half a century business. We have jointly through the various commissions interrogated the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that have to date surrounded the taxi business. We have done so conscious of the fact that, unless we stand up in unison and reposition our business and its activities, we surely face extinction at the hands of the transformative changes of our public transport in the country. We therefore as the present generation of the taxi business, remain the only study of whether this business will continue to exist and even prosper or become another black failure.

I wish to reflect on the AGM and just hint on the critical issues that can either make or break us for the duration of our lifespan. My remarks would be focused on unity, redefinition of the taxi business and customer care. I have specifically chosen these issues because in developing action plans for the future, we will consistently be referring to them or we need to see them as pillars in what we do.

Reorganising the taxi business

This principle is based purely on the 3 RRR pinnacles of our 2020 strategy as the SANTACO and the taxi industry in general. These three RRRs stand for Redefinition, Restructuring and Repositioning and I would broadly describe them under this heading without necessarily dwelling into each one of them. I am saying this because my AGM report had covered this in finder details.

Perhaps it is important that as you begin to speak and claim to be a representation, your identity becomes crystal clear such that you and everybody else understand the premise of your debate. During the AGM, there was a chorus of “paradigm shift” of taxi activities. But this shift in business practice must be preceded by a distinct identity. I’m excited to have noted that the AGM embraced the name change from taxis to transport. But we need to act on this transition and have our outlook reflect that we are a transport service provider contrary to the current taxi service that we provide. This means that we will become SANTACO within the context of the South African National Transport Council and not the South African National Taxi Council. And when we are a transport provider, me MUST act like one and not be perceived to be one. We need to be able to provide business or service in every part of public transport at any given time of need.

We therefore also need to organize ourselves into better structures of business activity that for the power it wields, can determine market value and influence legislation. Even though actual operation speaks differently for instance, we need to start with the basics and operate the taxi business within the reflection that it is a family business. We do this by including the members of our families and listing them under a one registered business entity that runs our taxi fleet at home. This would benefit us in the sense that the entire family is part of the business operation and consequently, take ownership thereof through learning and actively participating in its day to day running. This form of business management is an advantage that makes restructuring and partnerships easily reacheable particularly when you look where the AGM was directing us to.

Looking into our redefinition, restructuring and repositioning vision as SANTACO, the formation of taxis into family businesses easily falls into our restructuring as we seek to translate Associations into corporate entities that are equity driven and profit centered. The founding of taxi Associations at the time where to guard interests of those aligned to a specific route and served as a means of averting disallowed operations. Hence as we called in government to assist in dealing with illegal operations on our routes that led to the creation of route-based operating licenses thereby doing away with the radius based permits. Isn’t this limiting our operation and opportunity to maximize profit? Today, transport is the second biggest contributor to the GDP after communications and by virtue of this, it dictates for us to be pro-active in dealing with the competition challenges that continue to brew themselves into serious threats.

Our Associations in their current forms cannot address our business strategy effectively, because our needs today as dictated by competition and business opportunism write off Associations as a vehicle of empowerment in business. We need a business entity that would be able to centrally manage our diversified business operation and have the necessary skills and expertise that would guard and advise us on equity holding and opportunities, monitor profit margins and do all this through efficient administrative systems. This lays good environment for our diversification plan. As we define ourselves as a transport provider, we take note that transport is taxis, buses, trains and so on. As the main provider of public transport, we must use the power that we have in rendering these services in all sectors of our transport economy.

Data bank

But we also need a data bank. For a very long have we been defined by perceptions and studies of interest groups for numerous reasons which have not really benefited us. We need to collect our data and use it argue our course with government and business alike. At the moment, it is practically impossible to dispute government’s principle application of thought on decision making processes that affect taxi business because they do that based on what they have in hand…something we do not have. So the development of a data bank has become critical to us from the number of taxis to the value of the route. In fact, the decision upon which the R7.7 billion rand has been made as the appropriate budget for these coming seven years, remains highly questionable, but for whatever it is, we need to prove factually. I would therefore wish to request the province and all its structures to help the national office when it starts with this project of data collection. A team from SANTACO will visit the province to do this.

Unity

There is nothing that beats unity. We need to engage in unification plans and campaigns that continue to strengthen us in all respects of our endeavours. To me, the divisions so much spoken about do not really reflect the definition of the word considering the founding of SANTACO. But equally we need to look beyond this and ensure that we represent a united business. I am saying this because SANTACO during inception was mandated to ensure that unity in the taxi industry prevails. To me in particular, this unity represents so many achievable goals that most critically would guarantee our forever existence in the public transport business. Our inability to stand as one disables us to influence market trends let alone dictating to them. While there may be taxi groupings that operate in the periphery, I continue to be optimistic that with our current progress and activities, they will find the right path home and become part of the family they have always belonged to. Already the meter taxi in the Gauteng province has started to register their name in the SANTACO fold.

Customer care

It is important that as a business, we get to understand the distinct fact that the survival of any business is depended on its customer base. For long to date, I have been calling on for change of attitude on customer care. I therefore wish to warn you that despite of how persuasively we can speak to government and business on our vision, spread our wings and take a large part of business in public transport, our inability to effectively service our customers will surely clip on our feathers. I wish to call on the provincial leadership and taxi operators in general to respond with urgency to this call. Let us become proactive and act in the manner that helps us maintain the majority shareholding that we enjoy in public transport. At the time SANTACO rolls out its national customer care strategy, lets us show a sense of readiness to become true messengers on national policies. Hence as the leadership we have even stretched this strategy to establishing national academy that will train our drivers, introduce new drivers and women drivers to our workforce to help us efficiently deal with the challenge. We want to introduce a dress code, restore better communication systems, and a sense of morality back into our business. Our customers must have a say in our programmes and how they should be serviced, because ultimately, they will be the recipients of the service. In fact it gives us a competitive edge if we customize our service to meet their needs because it surely guarantees us our clientele and enables us to lure even more.

SANTACO website

A new feel and look SANTACO website has been launched and is live as we speak. We have designed a more corporate website that our members, business and every other interested person in South Africa may find interesting to visit and read information and make references. It serves as a platform that even our commuters can use to post their questions and comments on. This does not exclude you the SANTACO member. The website address is www.santaco.co.za.

The role of women
For too long has this matter remained unattended. he AGM discussed this matter and resolved that the SANTACO Women Federation must be formed throughout the country and as the leadership we embrace this move.