Following a lengthy meeting between the taxi alliance and government, Wednesday’s planned taxi strike has been cancelled.
|||Wednesday’s planned strike by taxi drivers in Durban was cancelled on Tuesday night following a lengthy meeting between the KwaZulu-Natal Taxi Alliance, the municipality, Transport MEC Willies Mchunu, the SA National Taxi Association and metro police.
The meeting ended at about 9.30pm and municipal spokesman Thabo Mofokeng confirmed that the strike had been cancelled after agreement by all the parties.
“Mayor James Nxumalo and city manager Sibusiso Sithole attended the meeting and it was agreed that the commuters must not suffer and the strike was cancelled,” he said.
Eugene Hadebe, of the KZN Taxi Alliance claimed last night that the city had agreed not to stop taxi drivers during peak hours.
He further claimed that city had agreed to the taxi drivers’ demands.
“I can confirm that taxis will be working today. MEC Mchunu has agreed to all our demands. Taxi drivers will not be stopped during peak hours,” Hadebe said.
There had been fears on Tuesday that the taxi drivers were planning to go on another “indefinite” strike from Wednesday morning, which in turn created uncertainty for commuters, businesses and city officials.
Businesses had feared further financial losses, in the wake of recent disruptions and violence during the last four-day strike.
Ten days ago, taxi drivers marched to the city hall where they demanded that metro police stop “harassing” them during peak hours.
They also demanded that traffic fines be written in Zulu because they did not understand English.
That led to 46 taxi drivers being charged with public violence and released on R1 500 bail.
KZN Department of Transport spokesman Kwanele Ncalane told The Mercury on Tuesday night that his department would work with the city and the taxi alliance and conduct ongoing meetings.
“We agreed to look at the issues of tickets being printed in isiZulu and having African metro police on standby to communicate in the preferred language,” he said.
The drivers had also demanded that only black metro police officers should stop them because they did not understand English.
Asked if the city and Transport Department had agreed not to stop taxi drivers during peak hours, Ncalane instead said: “We are still discussing that. The important thing is that the commuter's safety must not be compromised.”
Andrew Layman, the CEO of the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that taxi strikes severely affected the businesses as workers were unable to reach their workplaces.
“The city’s business is deprived of a chance to grow,” Layman said.
Although we do not have figures on how much businesses lost financially during the last strike, I know that it was a huge amount of money,” he said. - The Mercury