Cape Town - Widows from Cape taxi associations marched to Premier Alan Winde’s office over grievances which included alleged unfair treatment by the City’s traffic services.
The women, whose husbands died in taxi violence, accidents or illness, accused the City of undertaking a special project to legalise illegal operators.
The women, from the Cape Amalgamated Taxi Association (Cata) and the Congress of Democratic Taxi Associations (Codeta), demanded a moratorium be put in place to halt the impounding of taxis until that process was finalised.
Scores of them gathered outside Winde's office wearing black, screaming and singing struggle songs in a bid to ask him to intervene and engage with the City.
Nelly Tom, president of women's desk at Codeta, said the City and law enforcement agencies must stop impounding taxis with immediate effect while they await the government gazetting the operating licences.
"They should refrain from stopping our minibus taxis in the morning while ferrying people to work and also when they come back in the afternoon, during peak hours," Tom said.
Cata women’s desk spokesperson, Uyanda Maqwazima, said the traffic services had made it a pre-requisite for anyone who released an impounded vehicle to first have his or her warrants cleared.
"We demand that this be stopped, as we believe it has no basis in law and borders on extortion by the government," Maqwazima said.
She said a traffic official may not refuse to release a vehicle once the reasons for it being impounded had been resolved.
She said the traffic department has turned the N1 into a no-go area for minibus taxis. "Every taxi on this road around Paarl is impounded under the pretext that it is operating on the suspended route B97," she said.
She said they have had their vehicles impounded while en route to Worcester, Robertson, De Doorns, even when they have valid operating licences.
Kurt Hendricks, deputy director of the Department of Transport and Public Works received the memorandum.
Hendricks said the memorandum concerns a lot of components, so he would take it to his bosses to distribute to various departments.
Traffic Service spokesperson Kevin Jacobs said the City’s enforcement staff were mandated to enforce the law.
He said there could not be moratoriums or exclusions for any particular group of road users, unfortunately, as the law had to be applied equally across the board.
Urban mobility Mayco member Rob Quintas, said the City, as planning authority, was currently undertaking the minibus Taxi Special Regulatory Project (the SRP).
Quintas said the project was aimed at legalising as many minibus taxi vehicles as possible through a scientific supply and demand method (Phase 1), as well as to get proposed new minibus taxi routes and routes already operated on illegally by the minibus taxi industry, verified and then registered with the Provincial Regulatory Entity (PRE) (Phase 2).
"This will allow for applications to be made by minibus taxi operators to legally operate on all these routes should the routes be registered by the PRE. Once Phases 1 and 2 of the SRP has been completed, the City will impose a moratorium on any new minibus taxi service applications for a period of five years," he said.