Cape Town taxi strike: Some scholar transport drivers halt services over safety fears

The Western Cape Scholar Transport Board said that with the safety of pupils and drivers top of mind, a number of scholar transport drivers were not operating on Monday morning.

This despite the provincial Education Department making an assurance that this wouldn’t be the case as a minibus taxi strike continues into a new work and school week.

Sporadic incidents of violence and intimidation have been reported since Thursday afternoon following a decision by Santaco to withdraw all minibus taxi operations.

But Santaco has distanced itself, saying its members are not responsible for the attacks.

The Scholar Transport Board’s Denver Van Aarde said the strike had created an environment that posed significant risks to both drivers and passengers.

“All these areas are chaos so we’re not risking our children’s lives or any driver. We’ve confirmed reports from our drivers in Kraaifontein, there’s unrest there as well… Blackheath, Mfuleni, Khayelitsha, because of the blockading the roads, Gugulethu, Samora Machel… they’re also not driving.”

Meanwhile, the provincial Education Department said that the taxi strike has had a devastating impact on schools thus far.

On Friday, 287,000 children missed school.

-EWN

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