Taxi bosses plan protest in city today

TAXI bosses in Nelson Mandela Bay will today embark on what they say is a peaceful protest in front of the City Hall in a bid to force the city’s leaders to get the R2-billion bus system off the ground.

Laphum’ilanga Transport Services, which represents the taxi industry, has vowed to pursue all its options – including possible legal action against the municipality – to compel the city to start the IPTS project.

This follows an ultimatum issued to the metro’s political bosses a week ago requesting them to start the project within a week, or else.

Laphum’ilanga chief executive Gregory Rockman said the metro had not responded to their ultimatum.

But mayor Danny Jordaan’s chief of staff, Mlungisi Ncame, said they had responded yesterday. He declined to comment further.

Meanwhile, Laphum’ilanga has vowed to stop any plans by the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) to start a new train route from Motherwell to the existing passenger line at Swartkops.

“We want to send a clear message to Prasa that we are never going to allow them to operate. They must stay out of the metro.

“It’s out of bounds for them until they reach an agreement with the industry,” Rockman said.

He, meanwhile, refused to say if the industry would embark on a strike, insisting only that they would stage a peaceful protest.

“Peaceful protest means exactly what it says. It means, you’re not going to find us burning tyres. You’re not going to find us assaulting people,” Rockman said.

For years, the municipality blamed the IPTS delays on the taxi industry.

Rockman said: “There is nothing stopping the IPTS [Integrated Public Transport System] from starting. The taxi industry is ready and waiting to deliver.”

He said all the paperwork and infrastructure were in place and they had been begging the city to start using the buses. It was contractually obliged to follow through with its agreement to implement the system.

“The project is not corrupt – the problem lies with individuals alleged to have acted inappropriately.

“Whatever investigations or disciplinary actions need to be taken must be done swiftly and decisively. But we see no reason why this should halt progress in providing efficient public transport to the citizens of the metro.”

Politicians “must stop being corruption busters . . . and implement projects”.

The municipality has not paid the 59 taxi operators who were pulled off the Summerstrand route in January 2013 – to create a commuter market for IPTS buses – since January.

The national Department of Transport last month instructed the metro not to pay a cent more to the taxi industry after it emerged that 45 of the 59 operators had not worked the Summerstrand route, and that some of the vehicles impounded were not roadworthy.

Rockman conceded some of the fleet were old, but said replacing them was “precisely the point of IPTS”.