‘Fire arrogant minister’
TAXI STRIKE: DRIVERS WARN MASWANGANYI ‘NOT TO PLAY GAMES’
Calls for scrapping ‘draconian’ legislation and ‘unworkable’ recapitalisation plan.
Transport Minister Joe Maswanganyi was warned not to “play games” with the taxi industry and called to step down from office by hundreds of taxi drivers who marched to his office in Pretoria yesterday.
Led by the National Taxi Alliance (NTA), disgruntled taxi drivers halted operations across the city ahead of their protest action against Maswanganyi. They called for the minister to be fired as he was “arrogant”.
“This minister and the department are out to serve friends and acquaintances only,” NTA president Francis Masitsa told the drivers. “We are saying today, contrary to his constitutional mandate, the minister must be fired. The business of ministers here in this department is always to attend dinners and ceremonies [and] to appear on TV, because they are conducting themselves and behaving like celebrities.”
The taxi alliance was aggrieved by Maswanganyi’s “arrogant” refusal to meet them after they addressed the portfolio committee in parliament to table issues facing the industry.
NTA spokesperson Theo Malele said they faced issues that included the “unworkable” taxi recapitalisation programme and lack of subsidisation of the industry.
“Some of our grievances are about pieces of legislature that are not friendly to the transformation of the industry and the value chain to economically transform it,” he said.
Their demands included the scrapping of the “draconian” Aarto [Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences] Act, which seeks to stop drivers from renewing their licenses if they have outstanding fines, while also demanding an increase of the scrapping allowance of minibus taxis from R80 000 to R153 000.
“We are declaring war against Aarto. That Act is designed to destroy the industry,” Masitsa said. “We are going to contest that Act in the highest court in this land. This act is designed to oppress the taxi operator and the taxi industry.”
The marchers went to the Union Buildings, where they handed over a memorandum calling on President Jacob Zuma to intervene in the “contracted” killings in the industry.
“We have, in the past, submitted memorandums and said we wish for the president to appoint a judicial commission of inquiry into taxi killings. Operators are being killed and nothing is done about that.”
Despite fears strike action would affect matric pupils who were writing an English paper yesterday, less than 20 pupils were redirected to alternative exam venues.