Santaco to continue Cape taxi strike after government talks collapse

The South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) says it will continue with its strike in the Western Cape on Monday after talks initiated to resolve the impasse collapsed at the weekend. 

Chaos ensued in Cape Town last week when Santaco abruptly halted all minibus taxi operations in the Western Cape after an impasse with City of Cape Town authorities.

This followed a blockade by taxi operators on Tuesday in response to the impounding of about 15 vehicles.

The situation escalated into clashes with police and metro police who used stun grenades to disperse crowds and smashed a window in a taxi to extract protesters. More than 200,000 commuters were affected by the halt in public transport services. 

Since then the council and government embarked on talks to resolve the issues but these were suspended on Sunday.

On Sunday night Santaco said: "It is with great disappointment that we must announce the talks that took place in an attempt to resolve the cause for the taxi stay away were suspended. We confirm the stay away will continue until August 9, as initially announced.

"However, we are open to talks with government to find a speedy resolution to the issues and we call on all our operators not to interfere with other modes of transport and not to take part in any criminal activities," the organisation said.

On the same day Golden Arrow Bus Services obtained an urgent temporary court interdict against the taxi council in a bid to halt threats, intimidation and damage to its fleet in Cape Town.

At least six of the company's buses have been torched and a driver was shot and injured in Khayelitsha since the strike started  on Thursday.

Another bus was reportedly set ablaze on Monday morning.

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