WATCH: Taxi owner widows protest
STAND: Cata and Codeta widows at WC legislature. Picture Mandilakhe Tshwete
The widows of murdered taxi owners marched to the Western Province legislature on Thursday to ask the premier to stop taking food out of their mouths.
The women hail from the Cape Amalgamated Taxi Association (Cata) and the Congress of Democratic Taxi Association (Codeta) and took over the taxis when their husbands were either killed or died of natural causes.
Codeta taxi owner Nelly Tom says: “We want the government to stop their project targeting the legal operators.
“There are new routes that have been discovered by both associations and because there are no trains, we want operating licences for those routes.
“Because there is a demand, the government must provide those permits for us.
“We also want them to do away with the administration mark and impounding, which we pay from our own pockets.
“The first impoundment is R7000 and the second offence is R10 000 and the third is R15 000 which we could invest in our own children.”
Cata’s Uyanda Maqwazima claims traffic cops are only impounding black drivers’ vehicles.
“We have done an analysis on the impounding of our cars, we know that 90 percent of the taxis in Ndabeni belong to us.
“They have roadblocks every morning to take in our taxis.
“We are all widows and we decided to come to the legislature to emphasise that we are unhappy about the way they are treating our drivers.
“Some of the widows don’t have money to release their cars, and they have to wait for six months for them.”
The Department of Transport and Public Works Deputy Director, Kurt Hendricks, received the women’s memorandum and said he would give it to the “relevant people to address and respond to.”