Taxi industry calls for ‘end of the road’ for mayor, city manager
Ekurhuleni Taxi Industry claims human rights have not been upheld by the metro.
Members of the Ekurhuleni Taxi Industry (ETI) downed tools on Tuesday to converge on the Germiston Civic Centre in a peaceful march.
Travelling slowly in convoy on the highways of Ekurhuleni, the taxis arrived with screeching tyres, cheered on by the crowd already assembling.
The march called for executive mayor Clr Mzwandile Masina and city manager Dr Imogen Mashazi to step down and a new executive mayor and city manager be appointed to forward all capital projects of the metro.
This comes after KTVR Bus Service (PTY) Ltd, which is owned by the ETI, was established to operate the Ekurhuleni Harambee Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system.
The metro on behalf of the Department of Transport appointed KTVR Bus Service to operate the BRT bus service because the taxi industry is going to be affected by the introduction of the BRT system. Taxi operators are expected to withdraw their taxis in favour of the BRT buses on the identified bus routes across Ekurhuleni.
Tebogo Modise, the marketing officer for KTVR Bus Service, said, “Whilst KTVR Bus Service is responsible for purchasing a fleet of buses and will run the service with a loan secured from the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA), the metro is responsible for building the infrastructure required, such as the dedicated bus lanes, bus stations, pedestrian bridges into and across the bus stations, IT infrastructure and ticket sales.
“To date KTVR Bus Service has purchased and owns 18 buses. An extra 40 buses are being manufactured by Busmark. We are expecting delivery later in the year.
“In total we will own a bus fleet of 210 buses that will provide a BRT service.”
Modise added that the march was informed by the following issues:
• Construction of infrastructure by the metro is way behind schedule.
• The contract for a technical adviser has not been finalised.
• The contract for market surveyors has not been finalised.
• The Memorandum of Agreement between the ETI and the metro has not been fully honoured by the metro.
• The DBSA loan is under threat because the metro has not fulfilled certain conditions required by the DBSA.
• The impression the taxi industry has been given is that the Harambee BRT project does not have the political support of the executive mayor and the support of the city manager of Ekurhuleni.
The memorandum, accepted on behalf of the executive mayor by the MMC for Transport, Clr Petrus Mabunda, further stated that they wanted the removal of the executive mayor and city manager to take place within 30 days of the handing over of the memorandum.
“Failure by the council to remove the mayor and the city manager will lead to the disruption of the transport service for a sustainable and prolonged manner,” the memorandum stated.
The memorandum also stated that the ETI had been trying to engage with the mayor for over two years but none of their letters had been acknowledged or replied to.
“Some communities in Ekurhuleni have endured similar treatment from the mayor’s office,” the memorandum stated.
The memorandum went on to speak about the metro failing to uphold the human rights of the ETI, as well as the Ekurhuleni community by not adhering to a number of constitutional requirements.
Zweli Dlamini, chief specialist: media relations for the office of the city manager, said that the mayor has committed that the metro would be engaging with the issues on the memorandum and would revert to the taxi industry within the stipulated 30 days.
A meeting between the metro and the taxi industry has been planned for Friday.
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