Taxi group sets IPTS ultimatum
Letter urges Jordaan to take urgent action
FED-UP with delays in getting Nelson Mandela Bay’s R2-billion bus system off the ground, taxi bosses have given the municipality seven days to resolve the hold-ups, or else. Laphum’ilanga chief executive Gregory Rockman refused to say what the taxi industry would do if the metro did not start the project within a week. In Rockman’s letter to mayor Danny Jordaan, his deputy Bicks Ndoni, portfolio head of the transport and roads committee Babalwa Lobishe and infrastructure and engineering executive director Walter Shaidi, he urged them to resolve all matters pertaining to the Integrated Public Transport System (IPTS). “We hereby request you to resolve all matters with regard to the IPTS within seven days of receipt of this letter, failing which we reserve our rights,” he wrote. “We have written, in the past, several letters to the NMBM, but none of the matters have been resolved, despite promises to resolve it. “Your urgent attention to all matters of the IPTS and resolve will be highly appreciated,” Rockman said in the letter dated November 17. Asked what was meant by “we reserve our rights”, Rockman said: “They can interpret it the way they want.”
He refused to confirm if a taxi strike was on the cards. Instead, he said: “We are not ruling out any action. Our campaign is #IptsMustStart.” The taxi industry has in recent years remained tightlipped about IPTS negotiations, even when the municipality blamed the industry for the delays. Jordaan’s chief of staff, Mlungisi Ncame, confirmed they had received the letter yesterday and that they would respond. He declined to provide details about when, or if, the IPTS project would ever start running. Previously, Lobishe said it was the “politicians’ position” not to sell the buses, but that a decision was yet to be made on what to do with them. A technical support committee set up by Cooperative Governance Minister Pravin Gordhan had advised the municipality to either sell the buses or use them and the infrastructure built to run a connecting service to the CBD.
