GOOD Statement by Brett Herron,
GOOD City of Cape Town Mayoral Candidate
30 October 2026
Minibus taxis dominate Cape Town’s public transport sector, with 900 000 passenger trips a day accounting for about two-thirds of all public transport commuters.
According to the City of Cape Town’s own transport plan, minibuses carry 22% of all commuters, buses carry about 9%, and passenger rail, 2%.
But instead of treating the industry as an essential public service requiring proper planning, regulation and support, the DA-led City continues to treat it as an informal fringe business to be policed, interdicted, harassed, fined and impounded. In this grey zone, disputes fester and turn into violence.
The GOOD Party condemns the resurgent taxi violence that has recently claimed about a dozen lives in Cape Town and extends its condolences to families and loved ones.
We call on CATA and CODETA to lay down their arms and talk; we call on SANTACO, faith and community leaders to help broker a ceasefire that holds, and we call on the City and provincial government to make the Minibus Taxi Task Team a permanent standing structure.
The Task Team must bring every taxi association to the table, alongside the City, the Provincial Mobility Department and its licensing authority, and SAPS.
The team should meet on a fixed published schedule, not only when people are being shot.
Its terms of reference must embrace operating licences, route allocation, rank and interchange management, and dispute resolution.
The team should set clear short- and medium-term targets, such as clearing licence backlogs and reporting back on them publicly, but it must also drive longer-term reform: Subsidised network contracts for the industry, access to the wider transport value chain, and development opportunities at interchanges.
Peace on the roads and a formal place in the public transport system go together.
Cape Town cannot keep moving from one taxi war to the next. The City owes commuters a public transport system that is safe, planned and stable, and it owes taxi operators a regulated, respected place within the ecosystem.
We therefore welcome the meeting convened yesterday by Mobility MEC Isaac Sileku and Urban Mobility MMC Rob Quintas with SANTACO and CODETA. It’s a start…
The police must continue to protect commuters and arrest thugs, while the City and Province move with speed to create an environment that is safe and convenient for commuters and respectful to operators and the industry.
Media Enquiries: media@forgood.org.za