Saturday, February 22, 2025

Looting, Blockades, And Violence As Gauteng Taxi Strike Goes Off The Rails [Videos]

A taxi strike is underway in Gauteng, as the National Taxi Alliance (NTA) protests outstanding COVID-19 relief fund payments.

[imagesource: Alex Mitchley / @AlexMitchley / Twitter]

A taxi strike is in full swing in Gauteng where the National Taxi Alliance (NTA) is protesting outstanding COVID-19 relief fund payments.

The aim of the protest action is to hand over a memorandum to Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula and President Cyril Ramaphosa to air grievances that the taxi association didn’t receive any of the R1 billion in allocated relief funds.

They say that Mbalula promised to provide funding during the national lockdown, noting that massive income losses were accrued due to restrictions on operations.

Via The Citizen, in a meeting that took place yesterday, the taxi industry assured the Tshwane Bus Service that the protest would be peaceful.

“At our meeting with the taxi industry yesterday they indicated that the protest would start at 10am and that it would be peaceful, hence we allowed our buses to operate early this morning and we were going to withdraw them just before the protest got underway. Our drivers have been warned to not operate in the Orchards area.”

The withdrawal and warning comes after the Tshwane Bus Service announced this morning that one of its vehicles had been hijacked in the Orchards area, allegedly by taxi drivers.

Passengers onboard were kicked off the bus:

Further incidents have been reported including a driver who was allegedly attacked, as well as blockades in several areas, and on major routes throughout Gauteng.

In Pretoria, protesters targeted and tried to loot a liquor truck before SAPS intervened. Alex Mitchley, on Twitter, reports seeing taxi drivers hitting a City of Tshwane branded vehicle with sticks and knobkerries.

Videos and images are have been flooding Twitter throughout the day, under the hashtag #TaxiStrike:

Matric students affected by the strike will be given a maximum of an hour’s grace to arrive at the testing venue.

At the time of writing, the taxi drivers are getting ready to head on over to the Department of Transport to hand over their memorandum of grievances, following which they will head to the Union Buildings.

[source:citizen]