A last-minute meeting between government officials and Santaco (South African National Taxi Council) averted a provincial taxi strike planned for yesterday (22 February).
The strike would have coincided with the Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana’s Budget speech at Cape Town City Hall yesterday afternoon. It would have cost the Western Cape economy millions of rands.
Santaco, with eight regions across the province, had planned a shutdown of their services due to some grievances relating to, among others, B97 route, impounding of taxis and scholar transport.
In a late afternoon meeting on Tuesday, Premier Alan Winde, Mayor Gordin-Hill Lewis, newly appointed Provincial Minister of Mobility Ricardo Mackenzie and Santaco executive met to discuss the impasse.
A decision was made to provide Mckenzie with the necessary time to engage the organisation on their grievances.
Santanco general secretary in the province Elryno Saaiers said a task team would meet weekly to find a consensus, with the first meeting scheduled for Tuesday 28 February.
“I have not yet met with the delegation that represented us in the meeting. So, I don’t have the nitty-gritty to unpack at this stage,” Saaiers told City Vision yesterday morning.
Saaiers believes Mckenzie may have played a role as they tried since October/November to engage the provincial government “without any success”.
Mayco member for urban mobility Rob Quintas said he was “extremely pleased” that the meeting led to the cancellation of the strike.
“As a result of the progress made during today’s engagement, all taxi industry roleplayers are asked to continue with operations as usual. Our people cannot afford disruptions in getting to work and putting food on their tables, and our communities cannot again be exposed to the risk of public violence,” he said.
Quintas said the City and the Provincial Government would make a sustained effort to engage the leadership and ensure peaceful, proactive ways to address the various obstacles. He said this will be done in the spirit of open and frank ongoing dialogue, where “we as government are able to move forward in regularising the industry”, and ensuring a working, integrated public transport system in Cape Town.