The ongoing taxi strike in Cape Town has cost the city dearly.
Since the strike started around five days ago, over 280,000 learners have been unable to attend school, over 9,000 teachers and staff prevented from going to work, and medical facilities including Tygerberg, Red Cross, and Groote Schuur hospitals, as well as community clinics, have had to operate at reduced capacity, said MEC for Mobility Ricardo Mackenzie.
In addition, at least two people have lost their lives, and six Golden Arrow buses along with several law enforcement and emergency response vehicles have been set alight.
This has forced the bus service to terminate its routes in Khayelitsha, Langa, Mfuleni, Nyanga, and Philippi East, and to get a court order against the South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) to stop intimidating, harassing, threatening, or interfering with its buses, employees, and passengers.
The authorities have also had to adopt contingency plans to ensure the burned vehicles have no operational impact on the deployment of Law Enforcement Advancement (LEAP) officers in the Delft area.
This comes at the same time when Cape Town’s passenger train operations have been halted due to a fallout in negotiations between the city and the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa), thus leaving thousands of commuters without transport.
Source: TrafficSA
What Santaco is striking about
Santaco’s strike action is a response to Cape Town’s implementation of new by-laws that make more provisions for the impounding of vehicles.
This includes when:
- The driver is unlicensed
- The driver is under the influence of alcohol
- The driver disobeys an instruction to stop or pull over, resulting in a pursuit
- The vehicle was involved in reckless/negligent driving or illegal street racing
- The vehicle is unregistered, has an expired licence disc older than 90 days, is not roadworthy, or has been abandoned
The City’s Safety and Security Portfolio Committee Chairperson, Councillor Mzwakhe Nqavashe, said these amendments were designed to address the “ongoing disregard for law and order on our roads, and the carnage that so often accompanies it.”
“We found ourselves in a position where, despite all of the measures introduced over time to improve the behaviour of road users and safety in general, little had changed – motorists arrested for very serious transgressions would simply be back behind the steering wheel just a day or two later.”
The laws were passed following comments from over 1,800 members of the public and a unanimous vote of approval by the multi-party Portfolio Committee.
However, Santaco Provincial Chairperson Mandla Hermanus said these bylaws are squarely targeted at the taxi industry, and has the potential to put many operators and drivers out of work.
“Suddenly it doesn’t matter whether you’ve got an operating licence or not, your vehicle will end up impounded,” said Hermanus.
In the first week the new by-laws came into effect, the city impounded at least 30 private and 306 public transport vehicles, but it has also had to deal with several violent clashes between taxi drivers and authorities.
Santaco’s “Stay Away” action effectively turned into a full-blown strike, with hundreds of taxis used to block off routes to key areas such as the N2 towards the airport, and initial talks between Santaco and the city’s authorities have been suspended, causing the Stay Away to continue to 9 August, as initially announced.
Santaco has also called on its members for a “peaceful Stay Away” and said it is “hard at work” to resolve any and all disputes with the city.
“It is with great sorrow and regret that we take notice of the violence and destruction of property and the loss of life that occurred over the last few days and this morning,” said the council in a statement on 7 August.
“We are sensitive to public sentiment and do not wish to alienate the public by actions that hurt or injure them. We call on all members to conduct themselves in a peaceful and lawful manner…,” it said.
Cape Town wants the friction to come to an end, too, with Premier Alan Winde asking all parties back to the negotiation table in order to find “common ground.”
Headline image: TrafficSA
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