Legal wrangling between Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) and Touch Down Taxis over indefinite transport permits at the Cape Town International Airport has led to township taxi operators accusing the company of unfair discrimination and of not giving them a fair chance to do business at the terminal.
The taxi operators, under the umbrella of Amalinge Co-operation, said they were being chased from the airport and sometimes threatened with arrest despite years of deliberations with Acsa to authorise them to operate at the airport.
The Amalinge operators claimed Acsa was favouring Touch Down Taxis and for years had failed to initiate tender processes to ensure fairness among all operators.
“All we want is for Acsa to open up the tender process and for us to get a chance to operate. For more than 20 years, the same companies have had the opportunity and Acsa is ignoring us,” William Bosman said.
Minutes of meetings between Acsa and Amalinge between 2014 and 2016 show Amalinge met requirements and Acsa had committed to reviewing current permits held by Touch Down.
Acsa denied unfairly discriminating against Amalinge, saying the legal battle was holding up the process.
“These operators contend that they have indefinite rights hence they have resorted to litigation. The position of Airports Company South Africa is that the operating licences have all expired in terms of the National Land Transport Act (No 5 of 2009), Acsa spokeswoman Deidre Davids said.
In 2002, when Acsa invited tenders for operators to provide metered taxi services at Cape Town International Airport, a group of metered taxi operators who had been providing services at the airport at the time brought an urgent application to halt the tender process, said Davids.
“In 2003, the matter was settled between Acsa and the operators then operating under the banner of Touch Down Metered Taxi Association. In terms of this settlement, these operators were granted the right to operate metered taxi services from a designated rank,” she said.
In 2017 when Acsa gave Touch Down a year’s notice to terminate the settlement agreement, the association took the matter to court again.