The Cape Organisation for the Democratic Taxi Association (Codeta), also sometimes called the Congress of Democratic Taxi Association(s) or Congress for Democratic Taxi Associations, is an umbrella body for

minibus taxi A minibus, microbus, minicoach, or commuter (in Zimbabwe) is a passenger-carrying motor vehicle that is designed to carry more people than a multi-purpose vehicle or minivan, but fewer people than a full-size bus. In the United Kingdom, th ...

operators in the

Western Cape The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , and the third most populous, with an estimated 7 million inhabitants in 2020 ...

province of South Africa. Formed in 1992, it is one of the two major taxi associations in the Western Cape, and has frequently been embroiled in violent conflict with its primary competitor, the Cape Amalgamated Taxi Association (CATA), since the latter broke away from Codeta in the mid-1990s. Codeta, like CATA, is a member of the Western Cape provincial arm of the South African National Taxi Council.

Operations

Codeta is one of several "mother body" taxi associations in South Africa: umbrella bodies, typically associated with a particular region, to which local taxi associations belong as affiliates. Individual local or long-distance taxi operators in turn belong to the local affiliates. As diplomat Jackie Dugard writes, mother bodies have become "political and economic agents in their own right since 1994." The mother bodies control various ranks and routes, which their members are able to operate on and for which they set the fare. Much of the conflict between different mother bodies is therefore rooted in commercial competition over control of lucrative or strategically important routes. For example, routes originating at the Belville

public transport interchange A transport hub is a place where passengers and cargo are exchanged between vehicles and/or between transport modes. Public transport hubs include railway stations, rapid transit stations, bus stops, tram stops, airports and ferry slips. Fr ...

in northern

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

have frequently been flashpoints in Codeta–CATA violence. As of 2005, Codeta controlled 14 short- and long-distance routes, primarily originating at the rank, known as Kuwait, in the Site C subdivision of

Khayelitsha Khayelitsha () is a township in Western Cape, South Africa, on the Cape Flats in the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality. The name is Xhosa for ''New Home''. It is reputed to be the largest

. By 2012, it ran 16 routes out of the Kuwait rank alone. Its headquarters, and reportedly its strongest base, are also in Khayelitsha. In the same year, membership fees for its affiliates were between R20,000 and R30,000, and there are also "rank fees" charged daily per vehicle for the right to operate out of Codeta-controlled taxi ranks.

MyCiti N2 Express

Codeta is a shareholder in a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...

, called N2 Express, which operated the

MyCiti MyCiti is a bus rapid transit service with feeders, which forms part of a greater Integrated Public Transport driven economic development strategy of the City of Cape Town Municipality (CoCT) in South Africa. The service is being rolled out ac ...

bus rapid transit N2 Express service to Khayelitsha and

Mitchells Plain Mitchells Plain is a large township located within the City of Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa and situated about from the Cape Town city centre. It is one of South Africa's largest residential areas and contains multiple smaller suburbs ...

between July 2014 and May 2019, when the service was halted amid an apparently insoluble dispute among shareholders including Codeta. In 2021, the

City of Cape Town The City of Cape Town ( af, Stad Kaapstad; xh, IsiXeko saseKapa) is the metropolitan municipality which governs the city of Cape Town, South Africa and its suburbs and exurbs. As of the 2011 census, it had a population of 3,740,026. The remo ...

announced that it planned to sign a new agreement with the N2 Express vehicle, which would allow the service to return; but in January 2022, the Codeta leader who had been delegated to sign the agreement on Codeta's behalf was killed in a suspected murder.

History

1992: Formation

Codeta was formed on 8 March 1992 by a merger between the Lagunya Taxi Association (Lagunya is a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsLanga,

Gugulethu Gugulethu is a township in the Western Cape, South Africa and is 15 km from Cape Town. Its name is a contraction of ''igugu lethu'', which is Xhosa for ''our pride''. The township was established along with Nyanga in the 1960s. History The ...

and

Nyanga Nyanga may mean: *Nyanga Province, of Gabon * Nyanga River, in Gabon and Congo *Nyanga people, an ethnic group from Congo *Nyanga, Zimbabwe, a town *Nyanga District, Zimbabwe *Nyanga National Park in Zimbabwe * Nyanga, Western Cape, a township in S ...

) and the Western Cape Black Taxi Association (Webta). For several years, Lagunya and Webta had been engaged in violent conflict in Cape Peninsula

township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...

s. Their merger was the result of mediated negotiations, with community leaders taking advantage of the country's political situation – negotiations to end apartheid were ongoing – to urge the associations to reconcile. At its establishment, Codeta represented thirteen taxi associations, and its first executive committee of Codeta comprised sixteen members, both from Lagunya and from Webta. Its major aims were to minimise rivalry and violence in the Western Cape taxi industry, and to improve taxi operators' bargaining position in anticipated negotiations with government over the future of the industry.

1994: Breakaway of CATA

Although a relative period of calm followed Codeta's formation, there were residual internal tensions, primarily related to a perception by former Webta members that Codeta favoured former Lagunya members. In 1993 or 1994, a group of former Webta members, led by Simon Booi and Victor Sam, broke away from Codeta and formed a rival mother body, CATA. The breakaway group's grievances included allegations of corruption and misappropriation of funds by the Codeta executive, and the perception that Codeta was aligned to the

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a Social democracy, social-democratic political party in Republic of South Africa, South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when ...

(while, similarly, Codeta members believed that CATA was aligned to the

Pan Africanist Congress The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (known as the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC)) is a South African national liberation Pan-Africanist movement that is now a political party. It was founded by an Africanist group, led by Robert Sobukwe, that ...

). When the

Independent Electoral Commission An election commission is a body charged with overseeing the implementation of electioneering process of any country. The formal names of election commissions vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and may be styled an electoral commission, a c ...

subsidised the transport of voters to polling stations during the 1994 general election – South Africa's first democratic and non-racial election – some members felt that the Codeta executive had not fairly distributed the funds among members. And during the same period, some members felt that the executive did not adequately address their concerns about the construction of a new taxi deck at the

Cape Town railway station Cape Town railway station is the main railway station of the city of Cape Town, South Africa. It is located along Adderley and Strand Streets in the city's central business district. Lines Metrorail lines Cape Town station is the hub of the ...

, a major commuter hub. The eruption of violence between Codeta and CATA was apparently almost immediate, as CATA embarked on "an expansionist drive," competing for control of Codeta's routes, ranks, and members. Frequently cited as a key point in the history of the rivalry between the associations is a political rally in October 1994 in Khayelitsha during which several CATA members were shot dead. CATA had been invited to attend the rally without bringing weapons, and suspected that the invitation had been a trap arranged by Codeta. Further defections of Codeta members to CATA also contributed to the conflict, and, according to commentators, Codeta was significantly weakened during CATA's rise.

1996: First agreement

In 1996, Codeta and CATA signed an agreement, facilitated by the

provincial Provincial may refer to: Government & Administration * Provincial capitals, an administrative sub-national capital of a country * Provincial city (disambiguation) * Provincial minister (disambiguation) * Provincial Secretary, a position in Can ...

transport department and ordered by the high court, over the control of routes in the Western Cape. Codeta was allocated Khayelitsha and most areas south of the

R300 The R300 GPU, introduced in August 2002 and developed by ATI Technologies, is its third generation of GPU used in '' Radeon'' graphics cards. This GPU features 3D acceleration based upon Direct3D 9.0 and OpenGL 2.0, a major improvement in featur ...

, including Khayelitsha, while CATA was allocated areas north of the R300. However, according to a 2005 commission of inquiry, the agreement did not succeed in reconciling the associations, and it contributed to a situation in which not just routes but also whole suburbs effectively became the associations' respective turf. The 1996 agreement was the first of several agreements signed between Codeta and CATA, the enforcement of which has rarely turned out to be sustainable over a long period of time.

2005: Commission of inquiry

In April 2005, the

Premier of the Western Cape The Premier of the Western Cape is the head of government of the Western Cape province of South Africa. The current Premier of the Western Cape is Alan Winde, a member of the Democratic Alliance, who was elected in the 2019 election. He took o ...

Ebrahim Rasool Ebrahim Rasool (born 15 July 1962) is a South African politician and diplomat who served as the South African Ambassador to the United States from 2010 to 2015, as a Member of the National Assembly from 2009 to 2010, and as the 5th Premier of the ...

, established a commission of inquiry, chaired by

Dumisa Ntsebeza Dumisa Buhle Ntsebeza (born 31 October 1949) is a South African lawyer, public speaker, author and political activist born in Transkei, now the Umtata, Eastern Cape. Professor Lungisile Ntsebeza is his brother. He is the chairman of the Desmon ...

, to investigate taxi violence in the Western Cape, after Codeta and CATA engaged in violent conflict over control of the taxi routes to and from the new Cape Gate shopping centre.

Role in taxi violence

Like CATA, Codeta has been implicated in the hiring of ''iimbovane'' (English: ants), or

hitmen Contract killing is a form of murder or assassination in which one party hires another party to kill a targeted person or persons. It involves an illegal agreement which includes some form of payment, monetary or otherwise. Either party may be ...

, to assassinate enemies.

Organised crime Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally th ...

has played a role in the taxi violence, especially on the

Cape Flats The Cape Flats ( af, Die Kaapse Vlakte) is an expansive, low-lying, flat area situated to the southeast of the central business district of Cape Town. The Cape Flats is also the name of an administrative region of the City of Cape Town, which lie ...

, where Codeta is based, and especially since the late 1990s, when taxi associations began to solicit protection from local gangs. Codeta members have also been linked to

vigilantism Vigilantism () is the act of preventing, investigating and punishing perceived offenses and crimes without Right, legal authority. A vigilante (from Spanish, Italian and Portuguese “vigilante”, which means "sentinel" or "watcher") is a pers ...

, especially in Khayelitsha. Violence between Codeta and CATA most recently broke out in a 2021 turf war over the B97 route between Belville and

Paarl Paarl (; Afrikaans: ; derived from ''Parel'', meaning "pearl" in Dutch) is a town with 112,045 inhabitants in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is the third-oldest city and European settlement in the Republic of South Africa (after ...

, after in 2020 some CATA drivers on the route defected to Codeta. In a slightly different kind of conflict, Codeta has been implicated in violence not against members of rival taxi associations but against operators of alternative forms of

public transport Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typical ...

. Intimidation and violence against Golden Arrow bus drivers has been ongoing sporadically since the early 1990s, with taxi operators objecting to Golden Arrow operating on their routes and sometimes undercutting their fares.

Leadership

Vusumzi Lennox Miselo was president of Codeta between 2008 and 2020, when he was replaced by Dali Speelman in an acting capacity.

References

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