The national Department of Transport wants the deadlock between the municipality and taxi operators in Nelson Mandela Bay resolved as soon as possible so that the city’s Integrated Public Transport System (IPTS) can be operational by the end of the year.
Laphum’ilanga, which represents the business interests of the metro’s taxi industry, asked for the national department’s urgent intervention into what it calls the municipality’s divide-and-rule strategy, targeting individual taxi associations to sign agreements pertaining to the IPTS without consent from the negotiating body.
Now the department has asked the metro if it would be willing to work with Laphum’ilanga if the organisation could provide proof that it represents the majority of taxi associations in the city.
Acting chief director for public transport network development, Ibrahim Seedat, sent an e-mail to Laphum’ilanga and the municipality.
It read: “While it is recognised that the city is the responsible authority for the IPTS, and in line with national policy is attempting to negotiate with affected operators through their democratically chosen representatives, the Department of Transport would like to confirm that should Laphum’ilanga be chosen as one of the representatives of the affected operators, that the city will engage with them in good faith to conclude a compliant and fair agreement.”
He told Laphum’ilanga to provide the municipality with written proof that it had been mandated by the affected taxi operators to negotiate on their behalf.
| For the full story read The Herald, or get the complete newspaper, including comics, classifieds, crosswords and back editions in our . |