Spring made an appearance in Cape Town on Monday but it was the season of discontent for the EFF which couldn’t muster more than a small crowd for its “provincial shutdown”.
The red berets, all 100 or so of them, marched a few kilometres from Athlone to Ndabeni in blazing sunshine to draw attention to the Cape Town minibus taxi impoundments and “taxi passenger harassment”.
They did so without the support of the South African National Taxi Council (Santaco), which distanced itself from the event. Santaco said it was discussing its taxi issues with other stakeholders of the minibus task team and did not support the EFF’s shutdown.
But the EFF went ahead with their march, albeit a few hours late due to a real shutdown of the N2 which had been cordoned off by police, not because of the EFF, but because of an accident. Some EFF members believed police deliberately closed the N2 to disrupt their progress, but police kept a close eye on the marchers as they made their way to Ndabeni, where a few speakers addressed the crowd.
The party said it has a list of 131 taxis “wrongfully impounded” in Cape Town.
EFF provincial chairperson Unathi Ntame said the municipality wanted the owners to motivate why those taxis should be released, but he believed the city is trying to take advantage of the taxi industry.
EFF secretary-general Marshall Dlamini, who led the march, told Newzroom Afrika the protest succeeded in raising awareness about “unfair taxi impoundments”.
“It has been ongoing in the Western Cape, led by the DA, it is a racist approach of excluding black people from participating. We find taxis that have been impounded just because a taxi driver disagreed with a police officer who mistreated them.
“These impoundments mean the loss of income for those drivers’ families and are exclusively impounded in black communities. The party and drivers will not step back towards racist attitudes,” said Dlamini.
Urban mobility MMC Rob Quintas also addressed disgruntled protesters.
“The immediate release of the unjustly impounded minibus taxis, the response from the city has remained the same as it has been since the beginning of our discussions with Santaco. Any operator/owner who believes their vehicle has been impounded for various reasons and not under the National Road Traffic Act is welcome to bring that fine to the mayor’s office or my office so we can investigate and thereafter [it] will be returned immediately.”
Quintas was interrupted by protesters who demanded the keys of the impounded taxis.
TimesLIVE
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