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16 February 2007

The Mpumalanga Department of Roads and Transport will compact more than 100 old taxis on February 17, 2007 at Nelsville Stadium.

This is in a bid to implement the second phase of the government Taxi Recapitalisation Project (TRP) that aims to replace old unsafe vehicles with new, bigger and reliable mini and midi buses.

Upon surrender to the local scrapping centre which is based in White River, a process of verification was conducted and the owners have been given the R50 000 scrapping allowance. Once all the processes are finalised, the vehicles are compacted.

The onus is on the taxi operators whose vehicles have been de-registered whether they wish to exit the industry or want to buy a vehicle that meets all the set specifications in order to continue doing business within the taxi industry.

The Department of Roads and Transport has thus far handled more than 5 000 applications submitted by keen taxi operators, indicating their intention for their vehicles to be scrapped.

The department is working tirelessly to ensure the smooth running of the scraping of the skorokoros.

The effective transport system and infrastructure are critical in increasing the rate of investment in the First Economy and reducing the cost of doing business.

Vehicles that meet the required specifications and certified by the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) were showcased in Free State last year in October, and they include the:

*Toyota Quantum (14 seater)
*Nissan Interstar (15 seater)
*Fiat Ducato (15 seater)
*Mercedes Benz 308 CDI (16 seater)
*Peugeot Boxer HDI (16 seater).

Under the Midi-bus category:

*Mercedes Benz (22 seater)
*Marcopolo Volare short wheel base A8 (22 seater)
*Iveco 50c 14v15 (22 seater)
*Marcopolo Volare long wheel Base A8 (26 seater)
*Isuzu NQR 500 (35 seater)
*Tata Ubuntu (22 seater)
*Tata (26 seater).

Those operators who will not voluntary hand over their old and unroadworthy vehicles will lose out in this process because their cars will be scrapped by the province's law enforcement agencies and forfeit the R50 000 scrapping allowance.

The department's Transport Inspectorate has already begun with its operations to get rid of unroadworthy public transport vehicles on the roads.

The media is invited to be part of the event. The event will take place as follows:
First Session:
Date: 17 February 2007
Time: 09h00
Venue: White River Scrapping Site

Second Session:
Venue: Nelsville (Stadium)
Date: 17 February 2007
Time: 10h00

Enquires:
Mr David Nkambule
Tel: (013) 766 6887
Cell: 083 626 6306

Issued by: Department of Roads and Transport, Mpumalanga Provincial Government
16 February 2007