Durban - About 100 taxi operators and bosses have their lawyers working on a suit against the provincial police after what they believe was unlawful arrest and defamation of character, the group said on Wednesday.
The 95 long-distance taxi bosses were arrested by police in August as they gathered in Blood River, Ncome near Dundee, stopping and checking passing taxis' permits.
They said they had taken action because they had been pushed out of business by "pirate" vehicles transporting people from Johannesburg to various towns in KwaZulu-Natal without permits.
In an interview with the Daily News, Bongani Mthembu, spokesman for the disgruntled group, said the police had infringed their dignity. He said the taxi bosses were angry they were forced to lie on the road face down and were stripped of their firearms by the police who charged them with an illegal gathering.
Mthembu said they represented 33 long-distance taxi associations and were tired of losing passengers to illegal minibus taxi drivers who stole customers.
Mthembu added that they had not harassed anyone, but merely targeted minibus taxis and 8-seater vans ferrying people illegally. He said each taxi had been checked by three owners.
He said the taxi owners were doing their job of verifying if legitimate taxis were operating on long routes. They also looked at passenger lists which were stamped and signed at the taxi ranks before a taxi left on its trip.
"People are eating away at our business by loading passengers from hostels and other places, this is not allowed, because the law is specific about where long-distance operators must operate," he said.
Mthembu said minibus taxis operating between Johannesburg and major KZN towns were taking longer than a week to return home because of the illegal taxis which were stealing passengers. But since they intervened and started checking the routes, their cars were returning every two days.
Mthembu said they had met the new Transport MEC, Mxolisi Kaunda, to discuss their grievances and a reportback was expected next week.
Department of Transport spokesman, Kwanele Ncalane, said they had met taxi industry stakeholders and that the department was attending to the matter.
Provincial police spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Thulani Zwane, confirmed the arrests and said the firearms had been seized for ballistics analysis. "The firearms were seized in order to be analysed by the ballistic unit to check if they are not involved in crimes and it is unknown when these will be returned," said Zwane.
Zwane said despite the charges being withdrawn for insufficient evidence, the suspects "might be taken back to court once the charges are thoroughly investigated".
KZN's director of public prosecutions, advocate Moipone Noko, said the matter had not been put on the roll because of a lack of evidence.
"The prosecutor has guided the police on what further investigations to conduct and to return the case docket, when those investigations have been concluded, for a prosecutorial decision to be made," she said.
The matter was provisionally withdrawn last week, but the taxi owners raised concerns that their "luxury cars" and guns had not been returned to them.
"Those police officers dragged us from our cars and threw us on the road and took our weapons. When we asked why are we being arrested, we were told for illegal gathering, but we were just doing our work, because we cannot check at the rank only, we need to check along the route," said Mthembu.
He said their children were being teased at school with the distribution of the pictures of them lying face-down on the day of their arrest.
"The police distributed the pictures to the media to shame us, now our kids are being teased and we are called Boko Haram."
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