JOHANNESBURG – The South African National Taxi Council has denied any involvement in planning a national shutdown.
This comes after the country’s biggest taxi associations, Santaco and the National Taxi Alliance, were reported to be lobbying trade union federations such as Cosatu and civic groups to join forces for a national shutdown.
Santaco said that they did, however, still hold the strongest view that urgent intervention was needed from the government regarding high fuel prices, which were leading to pressure on consumers who now needed to pay increased taxi fares.
News of a possible national shutdown surfaced on social media this week, with taxi fares set to increase following the recent spike in fuel prices.
Petrol prices increased by R2.43 per litre last week, while diesel increased by over R1 a litre.
Santaco’s Graham Fritz: “government can maybe have a look at bringing down the fuel price, which is uneconomical for us as a country. The passengers, in the long run, are going to bite the bullet here and we really wouldn’t want to do that by just increasing our fares.”
Talks are set to continue with the government regarding the sky-rocketing fuel price increases.
