New task team to tackle taxi clashes

TAXI bosses yesterday agreed to form a task team to promote peace and reduce killings of their industry bosses throughout the province.

The agreement was reached at the provincial transport head office in King William’s Town where the bosses and officials were locked in a meeting with transport MEC Weziwe Tikana for most of the day.

South African National Taxi Council Eastern Cape chairwoman Noluntu Mahashe said she had proposed the meeting, pleading with the MEC to intervene in the ongoing killings of taxi bosses and constant fighting over taxi routes.

Mahashe said the conflict was now beyond the taxi governing body’s control, and that not much had been resolved in the three-hour meeting.

However, they had made progress with the formation of the task team. It would comprise leaders of Border Alliance, Ncedo and herself as a representative of the taxi council to deal with the problematic individuals in the industry.

“There has been so much blood spilled in this industry, particularly in parts of Mthatha and King William’s Town.

“They are destroying each other and their families.

“It has just been too much, which is why I asked the MEC to take the time to address them and hear their concerns and grievances so that they can stop fighting and start working together,” she said.

“We need to know the truth about what they are fighting about, and if they are not willing to work together we will have to disband the executive.

“It is very rare to have the taxi bodies under one roof and today they are here, and we are taking steps towards working together with the top five including myself, forming a task team that will get to the bottom of everything that has been going on in this province.”

The Daily Dispatch has reported on a spate of taxi violence which claimed at least three lives this year alone.

The most recent incident was the arrest of a taxi driver who was accused of assaulting and intimidating passengers and forcing them out of a Mayibuye Transport Corporation bus in Nxarhuni.

Mahashe condemned the behaviour of the taxi drivers.

“Tomorrow [today] there is a delegation that will be sitting in a meeting about that because you will find that the taxi operators are not even communicating what they are doing on the ground with their owners or respective associations,” she said.

In her address Tikana said: “There’s nothing new in what we were discussing today but the problem is they continue to kill each other, which we want to see stop.

“We’ve agreed that we will be cleaning some of their data because within their associations there are some people who aren’t supposed to be there. Secondly we are going to take out stickers, because that is the very thing that is getting them killed – the identification.

“Whether they agree or not, that is what we are going to do.”

Speaking about the recent incident in Nxarhuni, Tikana said all transport vehicles had their own designated routes.

“Every transport vehicle has its own route and nobody has the right to interfere with the route of another. Passengers and the community have the right to chose their own mode of transport.

“We will have no mercy on people victimising the community on what mode of transport they select.”