Taxi operators vow to protect road infrastructure
Two taxi associations say they won’t allow the service delivery protesters in Mamelodi to damage their routes with burning tyres and stones.
Mamelodi amalgamated taxi association (Mata), Mamelodi local and long distance taxi association (MALLDTA) vows to repair potholes on their routes “since the metro can’t because of the strike”.
They said they won’t allow the protesters to damage their routes with burning tyres or barricade roads with stones.
The associations recently worked hard to re-open Tsamaya Road, which was badly damaged with more than a thousand potholes.
Mata chairman Ben Maredi and MALLDTA public relations officer Mpho Mokgari said their associations had agreed on measures to safeguard the roads and came up with a contingency plan to ensure their commuters and drivers were safe on the road.
They said the associations will deploy a monitoring team to patrol the roads and prevent any protest action that can damage the road.
“The team and pirate squad will be risking their lives every day making sure commuters and drivers arrive home safe without any harm coming to them,” they said.
Maredi said the reason the two associations started the patrol is because a few months ago, Tsamaya Road from phase 3 to Mahube was so bad and every day their drivers and passengers would complain about it.
He said motorists struggled to use the road because of potholes all over and their tyres were forever ruined by potholes. They also faced huge delays because of snaking traffic jams.
He said community members took out their service delivery frustration on the streets damaging Tsamaya Road even further.
“The associations agreed on working jointly to patrol the roads and make sure that our drivers and our commuters are safe on the road and no life is lost because of the illegal strike,” said Maredi.
“We love our community and want to see good things in our community and we want an everlasting relationship with the community at large.”
He added that when the road was in a bad condition they consulted the local councillors about it and were told that they were waiting for the government to fix the road.
He said the taxi associations intervened by sending a memorandum to the office of the MEC for transport.
“We have held meetings with them to discuss the road and the project to fix the road that was officially launched in May,” he said.
Mokgari said pleaded with residents who wished to protest not to vandalise the road.
“Rather come to our office and we will supply them with free transportation to take their memorandum or petition to the relevant department.
“We are not against people protesting but they must do it in the right manner and must not vandalise roads because that ruins our business.”
He said damaged roads don’t only affect taxi drivers but all the people who are using the infrastructure, including people to and from work as well as school children.
He said after the road was fixed they promised to look after it.
The illegal protests have a bad impact on all residents because sometimes protesters refuse to let ambulances, hearses, clinic staff and teachers through. Healthcare facilities and schools often have to close.
Mokgari called on the community to work together with them because “when we speak, our government listens”.
“When we come across the people who protest we negotiate with them peacefully and refer them to our offices for help and we intervene and assist where we can,” he said.
“We want to thank all the monitoring teams, patrollers and pirate squad for risking their lives to safeguard the roads every day.”
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