The African National Congress (ANC) in the Western Cape has asked the national government to urgently intervene in the ongoing taxi strike in the province.
The party’s provincial representatives and the national Transport Minister Sindiswa Chikunga met in Cape Town on Friday to discuss the issue.
On Thursday, taxi organisation South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) announced that its members would protest against the City of Cape Town’s traffic by-laws under which it has been impounding taxis.
Widespread violence has been reported across the Cape Flats. Six buses have been torched and sporadic incidents of stone-throwing on major highways have been reported.
Schooling has also been disrupted, with thousands of commuters left stranded.
SANTACO strike leaves thousands of Cape Town taxi commuters stranded:
Meanwhile, the operators of Golden Arrow Buses say that they’ve had to deviate from their schedule in order to cover as much area as possible in the province.
There have been reports of violence against the bus drivers.
Golden Arrow Services’ spokesperson Bronwen Dyke-Beyer says they’ve cut services to certain areas.
“We are operating as full a service as possible. Unfortunately we get many people saying ‘is my bus still going to be on time’ we’re not operating as per schedule, we’re basically trying to cover as many points as possible. We aim to keep running until we’ve assisted everybody. Last night, we were still running buses after midnight, and there were still people walking home, people who spent the night not able to get home. So, our aim is just to cover as many areas as possible, and to just keep going as long as possible. It’s very difficult operating conditions, we’ve had to move out of Khayelitsha, and we had to move out of Nyanga, which means that the people that live there have to walk a long distance.”
