Santaco has allayed fears of another taxi strike after the City of Cape Town continued to impound vans over the weekend – the day after an agreement was signed.
The City was accused of acting in bad faith after 14 vans were impounded – eight on Friday, and six on Saturday.
The terms of the agreement were that no taxis would be taken off the road for 14 days.
On Sunday, Santaco treasure-general Ivan Waldeck said: “The City impounded cars the day after an agreement was reached.
“We will be approaching the courts and file an urgent interdict to stop them from impounding our cars.”
A leaked email from the Mobility Department’s Ntomboxolo Makoba-Somdaka to Santaco read: “Regarding [Friday’s] impoundments, I followed up and have been instructed to inform the industry that, the six impounded [vehicles] will be released with no impoundment fees, but the fine for the offence code still stands. So they will have to pay the fine but there’s nothing to pay at the pound.
“Apparently these vehicles were impounded because the negotiations and final agreement happened so quickly that the message hadn’t filtered down to operational command properly. The City has ensured now that all officers are properly informed.”
The email circulating on social media had Capetonians paaping. The first strike claimed the lives of five people and brought the city to a standstill for eight days. Santaco said it cost the local taxi industry up to R120 million.
Santaco said on Monday there wouldn’t be another strike: “As Santaco, we want to categorically state that there is no strike planned by the industry. What is being circulated around is fake news.”
By Monday night Santaco would not officially confirm whether they would be applying for the interdict or not.
A Santaco source told the Cape Argus: “It was just our regular meeting and nothing noteworthy, there will not be a stayaway as we promised the government we would notify people 36 hours before we strike.
“[On Monday] morning we are supposed to meet with the MEC and the task team but we can’t because we have to speak to all the associations about what happened.
“We are still going to file the interdict but I don’t know when, we feel the City shouldn’t have impounded the taxis on Friday because of overload which is contrary to the conditions of the agreement.”
Mayco member for Safety and Security, JP Smith, said that the impoundment of the taxis was done in compliance with the agreement with Santaco.
“Only one was contrary to the agreement with Santaco [for significant overloading – four passengers more than the act permits] and this vehicle was released because it hadn’t been processed yet,” Smith explained.
“The other taxis were impounded for the serious offences as agreed upon with Santaco and these are impoundments under the NLTA for vehicles driving without an operating licence, on the incorrect route, without a drivers licence or PDP, or which are not roadworthy.”
Over the next two weeks, the Minibus-Taxi Task Team will jointly seek agreement on what are to be regarded as major impoundable offences and minor infringements, and the appropriate penalty for the latter.
“This will inform a Standard Operating Procedure [SOP] to guide enforcement personnel's actions as per the National Land Transport Act [NLTA] and Operating Licence Conditions,” said the City’s Mayco member for Urban Mobility, Rob Quintas.
“Impoundments will continue for vehicles operating without a valid operating licence, operating outside permitted routes, the absence of a driver’s licence, operating without a Public Drivers Permit, or inadequate roadworthiness.”