EC Transport MEC launches Easter safety drive amidst ongoing talks with taxi industry

Eastern Cape Transport and Safety MEC, Weziwe Tikana-Gxothiwe, says talks between her department and taxi federation Santaco are ongoing.

The talks follow alleged attacks of long distance buses and private vehicles by taxi operators. It’s believed the operators don’t want private vehicles to pick up hitchhikers, while the buses charge commuters less compared to taxis.

The MEC launched the province’s Arrive Alive campaign at Pakade Junction, EmaXesibeni for a safer Easter weekend.

In recent weeks, a bus that was travelling from Gauteng to the Eastern Cape was allegedly pelted with stones by angry taxi operators.

Two months ago, a Toyota Avanza that was allegedly chased by taxi operators overturned, killing all four occupants.

MEC Tikana-Gxothiwe says they want to put an end to this.

“We are having a multi-disciplinary team of law enforcement officers working with the South African Police Service. As we could see now, we are at joint operations with the KZN law enforcement officers. That’s one issue but we will improve on the visibility of our members of SAPS with the traffic officers. Thirdly, we do have our high patrol vehicles on our roads. That’s what we’ve done. As from today, we’re having static road blocks in our area. It is a challenge. We are engaging with Santaco on that matter, which is the body of all taxi operators on how can we jointly eliminate that. But we are saying law must take it’s own course.”

Motorists on the other hand complain about poor road infrastructure.

Gugu Mhlauli believes this contributes immensely to road carnage.

“This operation is going to help us a lot in the province by reducing road crashes. But our roads are in very bad conditions. We also have a problem with stray animals. We would like the MEC to assist us by filling the potholes and make sure that they create job opportunities by hiring road rangers to control the animals on our roads.”

But MEC Tikana-Gxothiwe says with Sanral’s assistance, they are improving the province’s road infrastructure.

“We’ve introduced some contractors for pothole filling-in on our roads. We are capacitating our in-house steeps to be able to detect the potholes when they are there and shortening the time of upgrading those roads.”

In less than two hours, just over a hundred fines were issued at the roadblock. Most of the fines were for drunken driving, speeding and unroadworthy vehicles.

Tikana-Gxothiwe warned road users to be extra careful on the roads or face the might of the law.