Pretoria - Many commuters using Putco’s former bus routes in Mamelodi, Meyerton, Katlehong, Vosloosrus and Thokoza were left stranded or late for work on Wednesday morning after the withdrawal of services by the bus company and a blockade by taxi drivers.
While buses on most routes in Joburg ran smoothly, in Mamelodi, north-east of Pretoria, it was tense as taxi drivers surrounded the Autopax bus depot preventing buses from leaving.
A hundred taxi drivers and taxi owners from three taxi associations blocked off the depot. By 9am, all the buses were still parked.
Passengers who had boarded the buses were allowed to disembark just before 9am. By that time, many had given up on going to work.
Kgomotso Koko, who commutes from Mamelodi to Irene, was among them; alternative means of transport, he said, were too steep for him.
“The problem is that taxis don’t go all the way to Irene; they stop in town,” he said.
So commuting by taxi meant catching two, one to the Pretoria CBD, then another to Irene. It costs him R500 a month to commute by bus; taxis would cost R1 400, he said.
But taxi owners were adamant that they deserved to take over from Putco, saying the government had promised them this would happen when Putco was phased out.
One taxi driver, who declined to be named, said they had gone for training last month to help them understand the routes and how to handle the passengers.
Putco said earlier this week that after being unable to resolve subsidy issues with the Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport, it was suspending its routes in these areas from on Wednesday.
The department then, as an urgent interim measure, signed a three-month contract with Autopax, a subsidiary of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa, to take over the routes.
Autopax chief executive Nathi Khena said taxi drivers had started the blockade at 4.30am.
He said they had been advised on Tuesday of possible action and had alerted the police.
“But there was only one van there and the drivers were trying to persuade the police to leave. The taxi drivers virtually held our depot drivers hostage,” he said.
Khena said Autopax was simply taking over existing Putco routes, not taxi drivers’ routes.
Another problem, he said, was that, until two days ago, Autopax was expecting to take over drivers from Putco.
“Suddenly, Putco made them a counter-offer with letters of transfer to place them on other routes. This set us back, so we were not able to operate at full capacity this morning. We are now embarking on an urgent recruitment drive to fill the positions,” he said.
Putco announced in February that it had given the transport department notice that it would not be renewing its operating licences when they expired in March, saying they were not financially viable.
Putco and the department agreed the bus company would continue operations for a few more months.
The bus company said subsidy increases were lower than overall increases in petrol, labour and maintenance.
Transport Department spokeswoman Octavia Mamabolo called the actions of taxi drivers this morning “purely criminal”.
“They are saying we made them promises that they would be able to take over the routes, which is not true. There are legal processes to follow. We signed a government-to-government agreement with Autopax, which had spare buses, to help us out in a crisis situation for three months. These taxi drivers clearly do not have the interests of the commuters at heart.”
Mamabolo said there were labour issues that needed to be resolved in court. Until then, no tender could be issued for a new bus service.