“We were fighting a lot, we manage to sit down and find one another and say to ourselves guys we are losing every day by fighting because of the routes and other things. So we said to ourselves we are sick and tired of this thing, we don’t want anything that is going to stop our vehicles. That is why we said no looting because our vehicles are repossessed now and then because of the pandemic,” adds the Eastern Cape Santaco secretary.
The Eastern Cape province has over 90 taxi associations. According to Santaco. if the looting had taken place, the industry could have suffered a daily loss of half-million rand.
Taxi driver Siyabonga Ndaba says some of the targeted malls are close to taxi ranks, hence they took a decisions to prevent the looting.
“One it will take the business away from us because if we cannot carry passengers, then there will be no one in town. But the Looting is the thing that we were against . So we trying to urge everyone in the Metro that to stay away from the looting.”
Meanwhile, two taxi bosses were fatally shot in two separate incidents this past weekend in Gqeberha and East London. The cause of the incidents is unknown, but police are investigating.
