Taxi strike threatens final matric exams

Furious East London scholar transport operators vow to stop working from Tuesday over nonpayment

Dozens of taxi operators issued a chilling threat to the Eastern Cape provincial transport department on Monday as a simmering dispute over payment for scholar transport turned ugly.

“If you don’t pay us what is due by end of business today, you will be picking a fight ... and we are ready.

“It will not be a nice fight, but a street fight.”

The warning was made telephonically by a taxi operator to a senior scholar transport system official during a melee at the department’s East London offices.

The angry operators said they would not be transporting any pupils from Tuesday — including matrics, who have started writing their final examinations — until they were paid.

Operations came to a standstill at the transport department’s scholar transport offices in Vincent.

More than 100 taxi operators belonging to Santaco splinter group Santaco B stormed the premises, demanding that they be paid for ferrying thousands of pupils to and from school in September.

The department blamed a “technical glitch” for the nonpayment, while describing the storming of its offices as a “violation of people’s rights”.

The operators say they were meant to have been paid their September money by October 25, but when the department failed to do so by Monday, they took their complaints to the department’s offices.

They rejected the department’s undertaking to pay them on Thursday, November 3, as promised by the senior scholar transport official they spoke to over the phone.

Stunned staff members looked on while others locked themselves in their offices.

Armed security personnel were later seen escorting taxi operators off the premises, while firearms could be seen tucked into the belts of some operators inside the offices.

Matric pupils began their final exams on Monday but the operators vowed to refuse to transport pupils across the province this week until they had received what was due to them.

Santaco provincial chair Bishop Zola Yolelo confirmed that a special provincial general council meeting held in Mthatha on Monday had resolved not to ferry children to school until the drivers had been paid.

Santaco B co-ordinator Gabs Mtshala, who led the group that stormed the Vincent offices, said many of its members were “heavily suffering” because of the department’s failure to pay them on time.

“Our agreement with the department was that we get paid on the 25th, but now it’s the end of the month and nothing has come to our side.

“Debit orders are bouncing and people are losing their vehicles as they fail to honour their payment arrangements with their financiers.

“Some have accounts for petrol, and when they cannot pay those, no one will want to give them petrol again.

“We also have drivers we should pay. Recently, the department sent us text messages demanding that we provide roadworthy certificates for our scholar transport vehicles, and that, too, needs money, which they do not give us.

“This leads to our members suffering heavily on a day-to-day basis.”

Mtshala returned to the pupil transport offices for the first time on Monday after being shot six times by unknown gunmen while coming out of a meeting at the premises in September last year.

After he was discharged from hospital he went into hiding, and only recently began appearing in public again.

Yolelo said taxi operators aligned to Santaco were considering a “total shutdown” over a number of grievances, including nonpayment for scholar transporters, but that they had decided to halt such action pending a meeting with premier Oscar Mabuyane, “possibly later this week”.

However, pupils would not be transported until the taxi industry got its money.

“Other than the issue of nonpayment, there are a lot of other challenges and grievances we have with the department, especially with the new transport MEC [Xolile Nqatha] who seems not to have an appetite for sitting down with us in a meeting.

“We are not going into a total shutdown because we have already managed to secure a meeting with the premier, and we want to give him a chance to resolve some of our grievances before we consider going to the streets.”

Nqatha’s spokesperson, Makhaya Komisa, denied Yolelo’s claims that his MEC was avoiding a meeting with taxi operators, and threatened to report their conduct to law enforcement agencies.

“It is absolutely untrue that the MEC has been refusing to meet Santaco leadership.

“The MEC has met the leadership of both Santaco A and Santaco B in his Qonce offices.

“His door remains open for any stakeholder or community member who wants to meet him.”

Reacting to the storming of the Vincent offices by taxi operators, Komisa said: “The MEC is of the firm view that no demand can justify the violation of other people’s rights.

“The MEC strongly holds a dim view of holding people hostage, and going forward we will be forced to open a criminal case for such occurrences.

“The nonpayment of scholar transport operators is regrettable and has been caused by a technical glitch in the government financial system, which has since been resolved.”

The senior official who spoke to the taxi operators over the phone said the next payment run would be on Thursday.

But operators rejected this and demanded she request a “special run” on Monday so they could be paid by Tuesday.

If you don’t pay us what is due by end of business today, you will be picking a fight ... and we are ready. It will not be a nice fight, but a street fight