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The Gauteng taxi industry has threatened to stage a protest march within seven days if its grievances against roads and transport MEC Kedibone Diale-Tlabela are not addressed, saying its working relationship with her has “seemingly irretrievably broken down”.
Addressing the media in Pretoria on Monday, the Gauteng National Taxi Alliance (GNTA) and Santaco Gauteng accused the MEC of bypassing the industry’s recognised leadership structures by engaging directly with taxi associations and operators.
“The MEC decided to engage directly with individual taxi associations and members while bypassing the duly elected regional and provincial leadership structures, thereby flagrantly breaking long-established protocols observed by successive MECs,” the industry said.
While commending the Gauteng government for years of co-operation that had helped formalise and modernise the taxi industry, the organisations said their dispute was specifically with Diale-Tlabela’s leadership.
The industry also criticised changes to the operating licence collection process, alleging that operators are no longer allowed to collect licences from the regions where they applied.
Instead, it claimed, licences are held back until the MEC schedules ceremonial handovers, forcing operators to travel long distances at their own expense.
The organisations called on the MEC to suspend any cancellation of operating licences linked to the current collection process, respect the industry’s recognised leadership structures and engage provincial taxi leaders to resolve the backlog in operating licences.
They also said letters requesting meetings with Diale-Tlabela on June 29 and Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi on July 10 had gone unanswered.
“If our cries and pleas are ignored, we will be left with no choice but to organise a protest march to deliver a memorandum of our grievances to the premier of Gauteng within seven days of this briefing,” the organisations warned.
Responding on Monday, Diale-Tlabela denied that relations with the taxi industry had collapsed.
“There is no broken relationship,” she said.
The MEC said the department continued to hold quarterly meetings with industry leaders and remained committed to dialogue.
“I am available and I want to meet with them, but they must not stop me from doing government work,” she said.
She defended the department’s operating licence verification process, saying it was introduced to address allegations of fraud, corruption and irregularities in the licensing system.
Diale-Tlabela said requiring operators to collect licences in person was intended to ensure licences were issued only to legitimate operators and to eliminate “ghost” operators and illegal taxi operations.
The MEC said operating licences continue to be issued weekly and urged operators who had been notified to collect them by August 14 or risk cancellation.
TimesLIVE
Mmatumelo Lebjane
www.timeslive.co.za
