KZN MEC for Transport and Human Settlements Siboniso Duma says in 21 days, national government will gazette long-awaited regulations for the e-hailing industry, following widespread instability in the sector and mounting tensions with the taxi industry.

This follows a strike led by the KwaDabeka and Clermont Taxi Association earlier this week, which brought Durban’s transport system to a standstill on Thursday. The protest erupted after Durban Metro Police impounded 25 minibus taxis, prompting drivers to down tools.

The taxi strike shutdown left thousands of commuters across the city stranded, with many unable to get to work, school, or essential appointments.

Speaking during a joint meeting held on Thursday in Durban with taxi associations, e-hailing representatives, and transport authorities, Duma confirmed that progress has been made after engaging with Transport Minister Barbara Creecy.

“While I spoke to the Minister, Minister Barbara Creecy, today, who then assured me that within 21 days, she would have gazetted the issue of the regulations. As you know, it has caused instability within the operations,” said Duma.

He acknowledged that the regulatory uncertainty has contributed to conflict and mistrust between operators, and stressed that the province is moving swiftly to address gaps within the Department of Transport, particularly around representation and internal coordination.

“There are issues that within the board of Department of Transport, there is a missing link as we do have one member in ensuring that when they do representation we fast track the process.

”We’ve presented that to the Premier’s Office. We are going to fast track that process. And within a short space of time, things will get to normal.”

Duma also highlighted the importance of data-driven planning, citing an upcoming economic survey aimed at better understanding profitability across both the taxi and e-hailing sectors. He said the department, along with a dedicated task team, would monitor operational standards and ensure sustainable business practices.

“There is an issue of economic survey that deals with the data analysis. As you know, that the taxi industry as well, they do have to do profit at the end of the day.

”The task team is going to check those issues. We also delve deeper in ensuring that from now onwards, they are going to meet day to day if there is a need up until the solution is found.”

To promote long-term cooperation and stability in the public transport sector, Duma announced the formation of a broad stakeholder summit, Indaba. 

“But we are going to yield at the end of the day, what we’ll be calling Indaba, that is going to be led by the Department of Transport, where we assemble all these stakeholders, the taxi association, e-hailing association, so that definitively we’ll be ensuring that we understand and consolidating a strategy of working together and consolidating a process of compromising whenever there is a need for compromise.”

He emphasised that the priority remains the safety and reliability of transport for commuters, stating that 70% of the public rely on taxis daily.

“Complement each other because our interest is to safeguard those who are passengers who are relying on majority 70 percent, utilise the taxi industry as a belt on a day to day basis.”

Following the meeting, Duma confirmed that the planned strike action would be called off.

“We’ve then agreed that the issue of the strike is going to be called off because we have just assembled in this table, we are working as a team and the solution has been found,” he said. 

hope.ntanzi@iol.co.za 

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