Lucas Lesiba Mogotlane has been in the taxi industry for over three decades. From a cattle herder in the North West province, he had grown to become a successful taxi owner and vice chairman of the Stinkwater Taxi Association. At the prime of his business, he owned more than nine taxis.

In 2005, when the government introduced the Taxi Recapitalisation Programme, he was one of the first to answer the call, trading in his fleet for seven new Toyota Quantums, most of them financed through the Toyota Financial Services. What Lucas did not know however was that all his new Toyota Quantums were illegally converted panel vans and soon afterwards, they were later declared unroadworthy by the traffic authorities. Now at age 68, his happy retirement dream is in tatters and his taxi business has been destroyed. He finds himself blacklisted by several financial institutions.

The Taxi Recapitalisation Programme which had been first announced in 1999 as a programme that would result in improved minibus taxi safety specifications and improved law enforcement, had been meant to replace an estimated 80% of the national minibus taxi fleet which did not meet the new requirements. As part of this requirement, in 2005 Toyota introduced a new minibus taxi, also known as the Quantum Ses’fikile. The new addition fully complied with the requirements of the Taxi Recapitalisation Programme and was lauded for offering high levels of safety and comfort, as well as better operating efficiencies for taxi owners. However, some saw a commercial opportunity by changing the original specifications.
As early as 2006, hundreds of the illegally converted panel vans were already being sold to unsuspecting taxi owners at twice the price. The motive behind this was that the retro fitted panel could carry more passengers compared to the Ses’fikile minibus. What taxi owners did not know was that the retro fitment made this new ‘taxi’ unstable and structurally unsound.

The next episode of Special Assignment will be broadcast on Thursday, 19 July at 21:00 on SABC3.