According to the Western Cape Education Department (WCED), Cape Town taxi associations are seeking to take over the transportation of scholars after illegally blocking over 2,400 learners from getting to school since last week.
Education MEC David Meynier said taxi operators have been threatening and harassing scholar transport operators in at least two Cape Town communities – Khayelitsha and Mfuleni.
“[Yesterday] morning I visited Academia Primary School, where over 50% of their learners have been prevented from going to school, due to an illegal blockade of learner transport operations by minibus taxi associations. [On Monday], their absenteeism rate is 90%,” said Maynier.
In his statement, Maynier accuses taxi associations of protesting in “an attempt to muscle in on transport contracts and extort money from the WCED.”
The statement went on to say that taxi associations were falsely claiming they were promised contracts by his department.
“They have now allegedly issued a threat to offload learners from any transport not operated by minibus taxi association members, posing a serious threat to our children’s safety,” he said, adding that the groups appear to be demanding contracts without following tender processes.This allegedly includes parents driving their children to school because their usual transport is not operating.”
As reported by News24, Cape Organisation for the Democratic Taxi Association (CODETA) spokesperson Nceba Enge said: “In March 2022, we [had] a meeting with the WCED to look at the issue of scholar transport. [They] promised us a series of [additional] meetings to consult and sort out the issue of scholar transport. But the meetings never materialised”.
Maynier said that the department will not meet with any minibus taxi association until the blockade is over and classes can go on as usual.
The MEC scheduled a meeting with the Provincial Police Commissioner, Lieutenant-General Thembisile Patekile, to find solutions to the attempted extortion and intimidation.
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Picture: @allcapetown / Twitter