Taxi recapitalisation gives Nomsa’s business (and family) a better future

For Nomsa Nokwanda Patricia Dyantyi, a minibus taxi operator from Cofimvaba in the Eastern Cape, her business is a family one – and the Revised Taxi Recapitalisation Programme (RTRP) means that it can stay that way.

The RTRP is an initiative aimed at improving road safety by removing old and unroadworthy taxi vehicles from South African roads via a legalised, incentivised scrapping process. Taxi owners receive a scrapping allowance for their old vehicles, which they use to finance new ones.

“My late husband started his taxi business in 2012. Upon realising my interest and involvement in the business, my husband left me to run the taxi business and he went into farming,” says Nomsa.

The taxi business has since sustained the Dyantyi family and also provided it with opportunities, she continues.

“The money from our taxi business helped us put our children through school. My husband, unfortunately, passed away in 2020, and unemployment was a challenge for my family and me at that time,” Nomsa recalls. 

“I then advised my children that employment does not necessarily mean someone has to hire you, they can create work opportunities for themselves. With this in mind, the children joined me in continuing the family businesses: one went into farming and took over operations of the farming business of my late husband, and the other one is in the taxi business.”

Nomsa heard about the RTRP through the taxi association to which she belongs, and seeing other operators successfully complete the process encouraged her to also do so.

The RTRP has helped to facilitate this shift in the business to her son, affording him the opportunity to make it more sustainable, she says: “When we heard about the recapitalisation programme we decided to apply to have our old taxi scrapped, so that we could use the funds received from the programme as a downpayment for a new taxi vehicle in order for one of my sons to continue with the business.”