Santaco set to stage national taxi shutdown
The South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) is set to stage a national taxi shutdown from Wednesday.
The shutdown is in protest against the government’s lockdown regulations limiting the number of passengers they are able to transport at any one time.
Last week President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a national lockdown, confining South Africans to their homes for at least 21 days.
The regulations enforced by the president include social distancing – a move that would see taxis ferrying much less passengers.
Taxi drivers are not allowed to transport more than seven passengers at a time in line with the new regulations to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
ALSO READ:
Numsa: Govt to blame for SA Express collapse
SA Express' business rescue practitioners recently filed a court application to have the ailing state-owned airline liquidated. READ: KZN man arrested for claiming ex-girlfriend has Covid-19 The government is yet to decide whether it will oppose the application. The company's interim CEO Siza Mzimela is also leaving the airline after just 18 months "to pursue other options".
The taxi association says they have met with government asking for this decision to be revised - as it is causing them to work at a loss.
But Santaco coordinator in Tshwane Thabo Moila says talks with government have not yielded any results.
“Our stance is that as from tomorrow we won’t go to the streets,” says Moila.
“The government doesn’t want to come to the party and also the harassment of the police on our drivers and also things that are being said, they are not being given to us in a written form.”
Moila adds the taxi industry was also not consulted before regulations were put in place.
“We’ll work until today at midnight, that’s when we’ll stop rendering our service and then we start with our shutdown tomorrow.”
The industry estimates that it will lose millions during the 21-day lockdown period.