{"id":409425,"date":"2020-06-21T20:54:45","date_gmt":"2020-06-21T18:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=409425"},"modified":"2020-06-21T20:54:45","modified_gmt":"2020-06-21T18:54:45","slug":"the-economy-is-falling-apart-we-have-no-more-money-to-give-mbalula-on-taxi-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/409425\/the-economy-is-falling-apart-we-have-no-more-money-to-give-mbalula-on-taxi-strike\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;The economy is falling apart, we have no more money to give&#8217;: Mbalula on taxi strike"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Transport minister Fikile Mbalula has warned the country&#8217;s taxi industry that the government has no more money left to give, noting that <span class=\"css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0\">a planned taxi shutdown on Monday (22 June), is counter-productive.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0\">&#8220;Resorting to shutting down services as an expression of disagreement with the quantum of the amount the government is offering the industry as relief support, does nothing for the industry. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0\">&#8220;A service shutdown will not only negatively affect the working class,&#8221; Mbalula said on Sunday afternoon.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The minister said that his department &#8216;noted with concern&#8217; the announcement by the Gauteng Provincial arm of the South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) of a shutdown on Monday, as a result of their objection to the Taxi Relief Support announced on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We find this action rather unfortunate and counter-productive. A service shutdown will not only negatively affect the working class, but will worsen the devastation of the industry,&#8221; Mbalula said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The economy is falling apart, it is falling apart,&#8221; the minister, said. &#8220;The reality is that there is no more money available beyond what the government has offered.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Resorting to shutting down services as an expression of disagreement with the quantum of the amount the government is offering the industry as relief support, does nothing for the industry.<\/p>\n<p>A service shutdown will not only negatively affect the working class. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/YqEnWKXgVa\">pic.twitter.com\/YqEnWKXgVa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Minister of Transport |Mr Fix (@MbalulaFikile) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MbalulaFikile\/status\/1274718404201545730?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 21, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The department noted that taxi industry is in the process of recovery from the combined impact of limited operating hours and reduced loading capacity as a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>Mbalula said that the decision, announced on Friday, to avail R1.135 billion to the taxi industry as relief support was not an easy one.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We literally had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to reach this amount, because we believe the taxi industry is deserving of support as the largest mover of our people.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We must equally appreciate that government has limited resources, which must equally benefit all other sectors,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Increasing the amount available is simply not an option, the minister stressed.<\/p>\n<p>Among concerns are how the money will be disbursed, while drivers are also calling for 100% capacity loads to be re-installed.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, Mbalula announced that SA Taxi Finance will put a moratorium in place on vehicle repossessions and also extend their initial one-month repayment holiday by a further two-months.<\/p>\n<p>The minister said that while plans to host a National Taxi Indaba were disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, the government remains committed to placing on the table a long-term taxi industry empowerment model, for discussion with all stakeholders.<\/p>\n<p>This model will outline the tangible economic support government intends to provide to the industry, and the critical trade-offs that have to be made both by government and industry, to ensure its successful implementation, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Mbalula said that there is no basis for any kind of shutdown, &#8220;and we appeal to the leadership of the taxi industry to discourage any such actions and give space to ongoing discussions&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our collective effort and focus must be on directing resources towards the long-term sustainability of the industry.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We reiterate our commitment to introducing subsidy as part of the long-term empowerment model of the taxi industry,&#8221; the minister said.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/409145\/government-to-give-south-african-taxis-r1-billion-in-assistance\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Government to give South African taxis R1 billion in assistance<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Transport minister Fikile Mbalula has warned the country&#8217;s taxi industry that the government has no more money left to give, noting that a planned taxi shutdown on Monday (22 June), is counter productive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":409427,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-409425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409425"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":409437,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409425\/revisions\/409437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}