South Africa News

Western Cape authorities planning to expand Red Dot taxi service

The Western Cape authorities plan to reach even more residents with its Red Dot taxi service.

With a fleet of 135 minibus taxis, the service, which transports residents to COVID-19 vaccine sites, is currently deployed at districts across the province.

Officials said that this would expand even further depending on the demand.

Premier Alan Winde, Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo, and Transport MEC Daylin Mitchell visited Atlantis on Monday to launch the service in that area.

As October marks Transport Month, the initiative, which was launched 17 months ago, is gaining momentum in the battle of lives versus livelihoods.

Transport MEC Daylin Mitchell explains how the service operates: “Where people are not able to use public transport, or public transport is limited, or people are not able to afford to get to vaccination sites, we send in Red Dot taxis to ensure that we leave no-one behind.”

Western Cape Premier Alan Winde said that the service would be expanded to more areas where there were transport limitations and low vaccine registration rates.

“So in Hout Bay, we’re seeing some of the numbers dropping now, so then maybe even there we’ll start to see distribution of vehicles and we’ll be doing that throughout the time, measuring and as soon as you have more demand, we’ll put more vehicles on,” Premier Winde said.

The service has transported more than 8,600 passengers to vaccine sites so far.

-EWN

In other news – Idols SA contestant sentenced to 10 years in jail

A one-time Idols hopeful has been sentenced to 10 years behind bars for trafficking drugs from Brazil into SA. Ibrahim Cook, who in 2014 won a golden ticket twice in the television contest to determine the best young singer in SA, was sentenced in the Verulam magistrate’s court last Thursday.

Idols SA

At the time Cook, who went by the names “Gordon Jordaan” and “Gordan Cook”, was described by Idols as the show’s “most cheerful contestant”. Learn More