VIDEO | Virus fears for taxi passengers and drivers

At 4am the streets in Port Elizabeth’s townships come to life with more than 4,200 taxi drivers up bright and early and ready to deliver thousands of commuters to their places of work.

While there are only 21 taxi ranks spread across Nelson Mandela Bay, “sweeper drivers” drive into the townships, collecting commuters and dropping them off at the main taxi point.

Over the past week, The Herald team visited three taxi ranks in the Bay — the Korsten taxi rank, the Mavuso rank in Kwazakhele and the Crossroads rank in Motherwell NU 2 — speaking to commuters and drivers about Covid-19 and hygiene.

With the rapidly rising number of Covid-19 infections — none yet in the Eastern Cape — commuters say they are more prone to getting sick because they use public transport.

Crossroads taxi marshal Wele Makanda said there were three taxi points in Motherwell and Crossroads was the biggest.

“We have more than 1,200 [people] in the mornings.

“The first taxi leaves at about 5am, sometimes earlier depending on how early people are, and we are busy until 9am,” Makanda said.

“Then in the afternoon our taxis head to town to transport people home.”

Makanda said he had seen health department officials visiting taxi ranks in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng and they should also visit the metro.

The traffic at taxi ranks pulls in various other business opportunities with vendors selling fruit, sweets, cold-drinks and stuffed vetkoeks.

And while some vendors offer clean water for customers to wash their hands or fruit — other vendors leave a lot to be desired.

Walmer taxi driver Thembinkosi Ndiki said the outbreak of Covid-19 had caused such panic that when he heard someone coughing in a taxi he was nervous.

The minister of transport had said they would be given masks, hand sanitisers and gloves, but they had not received any yet.

“Through our kind of work that we do we can easily get the virus.

“I come into contact with more than 100 people a day, helping them load their goods on and off the taxi and opening the door for the elderly.

“PE is the biggest city in the Eastern Cape but our offices haven’t mentioned anything about health officials coming to meet us,” he said.

Taxi drivers say they work at least 15 hours a day, and during this time they exchange money with hundreds of commuters and purchase food from the vendors who sell hot meals on the pavements.

Asked whether the taxi association was ready to prevent the spread of Covid-19, the general secretary of the Nelson Mandela Bay Regional Taxi Council, Andile Andries, said it was, adding that the council was now undergoing training in East London.

“We are now in East London with the roads and transport MEC and the department of health, where we are being trained to educate and equip our drivers and the commuters to prevent Covid-19.

“We encourage our members to sanitise their taxis. Our mode of transport is used mainly by disadvantaged people and we must realise that they can also speed up the spread of the virus,” he said.

Department of health spokesperson Siyanda Manana said the department was finalising the rollout plan with both the taxi council and department of transport, and the department would be the implementing agent.

“We are going to have stalls at taxi ranks where we are going to be educating people about the virus.

“Although we have not finalised the date, it is an immediate priority,” he said.

Department of transport spokesperson Khuselwa Rantjie said the department was not responsible for providing gloves or sanitisers, it was the department of health’s responsibility.