The SA National Taxi Council is appealing to the Western Cape provincial government to increase the load capacity for long distance trips to bridge the petrol price hike.
Santaco’s Mandla Hermanus said their main concern was that taxis are only permitted to carry 70% capacity when they are travelling long distances.
"The taxis have enough capacity to take people to the Eastern Cape. But our challenge is in the regulations that say we can only carry 10 passengers and it will not make much economic sense to us,” he said.
He said this issue might lead to a situation where a reduced number of taxi operators would be able to travel long distances, and that some associations might end up increasing their prices.
“So it is going to be a challenge for the operators because they will be subsidising the passengers. It is only for local trips where a taxi can fill passengers to full capacity. The long distance has always been 10 passengers, 70%," he said.
The Department of Transport and Public Works said they cannot act in contravention of the Disaster Management Act Regulations, “which are clear in stating the 70% limit on long distance trips further than 2 hours/200km,” said a spokesperson, Jandre Bakker.
Following a meeting between Santaco and the provincial government on this week, Hermanus said the department promised to start a process of producing and issuing special permits for long distance trips.
He said another challenge they were facing is that the government used to provide taxi operators with special permits during the festive season but they did not do it this year.
“What the government used to do was that from November 1, all taxi operators without operating licenses going to Eastern Cape, the government would give them special permits so that if they get passengers going to other provinces, they would be able to carry them, but the government stopped that.
“So normally the special permits are valid until the end of January when the schools are open and people are back to work," said Hermanus.
The Department of Transport and Public Works confirmed that they met with Santaco to discuss the issue.
The Congress for Democratic Taxi Associations (Codeta) voiced their readiness for the long trips that would come with the festive season.
Codeta’s Andile Khanyi said they resolved as the association that only vehicles that are in good condition would be travelling long distances.
He said even though the petrol prices were increased this week, they decided to keep the prices the same for this year.
"The good news is that we see the petrol going up, but we discussed the matter and we decided that the prices will not go up for this year, locally and the long distance," Khanyi said.