Cape Town - The Khayelitsha Development Forum (KDF) says claims of extortion attempts by the taxi industry were false and made in efforts to evade alleged commitments to introduce a system similar to the Blue Dot incentive programme for scholar transport.
Chaotic scenes were seen in some areas including Site C in Khayelitsha, Mfuleni and Mandalay as taxi operators once again prevented scholar transport from operating on Wednesday morning.
Some school transport operators came up with creative ways to get pupils to school as children sat between chairs and others lay down on the floor of vehicles.
Fed up pupils from various schools mobilised themselves and took to the streets in protest chanting “We want to go to school” as thousands had not been able to attend classes for almost three weeks.
Academia Primary School has been worst affected with an absenteeism rate of around 90%. At the heart of the matter is a dispute between Western Cape Education Department and the Congress of Democratic Taxi Associations (Codeta) that operates on the Khayelitsha route, calling to be the ones responsible for transporting children in and out of the area.
KDF chairperson Ndithini Tyhido blamed the education department, claiming it was weaponising the education of children in townships “in their quest for political expediency and fight with the taxi industry”.
“MEC (David) Maynier and his department claim they have the best interest for children, yet they bluntly state they ‘will not meet any minibus taxi association’,” said Tyhido.
“They have just been throwing insults and not showing willingness to engage. Meanwhile, children have not been to school for weeks now.
“They are lying claiming extortion, this (is) some cheap way out from the commitments and proposals that were made during engagements last year.
“A recommendation was made for a system similar to the Blue Dot that was used during Covid-19 to be introduced to include the taxi association which operates on the Khayelitsha route, in the scholar transport system.
This also ensures the safety of children. “So the taxi industry is not after tenders as alleged because the Blue Dot programme didn’t give taxi operators tenders. We have been following up with WCED and nothing,” Tyhido said.
He claimed most of the people operating scholar transport and buses were not from Khayelitsha, while the people permitted to operate in the area were not being included.
Maynier would only say: “Discussions were held last year about learner transport, however, the Codeta and KDF claims are untrue.
“And nothing can possibly justify illegally preventing over 5 000 learners from attending school.”
The South African National Taxi Council was stuck in a meeting with taxi operators about the matter until late on Wednesday evening.
Cape Times