TRANSPORT
AYABONGA CAWE: Taxi industry has a place in the debate on radical change
Minibus taxis transport most South Africans to their destinations every day. After navigating the driver’s choice of music and the politics of "four-four masihlalisane", passengers pass their rand to the front. The money that passes from hand to grubby hand, row by row, is counted by the taxi mathematicians in the "golden circle" seat in the front — it is the fruit of countless sweat. These same rand, in collectively organised hands are powerful. It is surprising then, why so little of the radical economic transformation narrative has landed in taxi ranks, on the tongues of queue marshals, rank hawkers and backyard "bush mechanics". It might be that the conversation, its tenor and its leitmotif, revolves only around elites with articulate English. The taxi industry is an unintended consequence of National Party planning. It is a cruel reminder of the South African public transport conundrum; those faced with the longest commutes are also those in low-wage, low-productivity employmen...
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