NANDUWE, WATA believe decade-long taxi war can be traced to Gauteng Transport Dept

JOHANNESBURG - A junior official from the Gauteng Department of Transport is allegedly responsible for a decade-long taxi war in Soweto which has claimed the lives of hundreds. 

The dispute between the Nancefield-Dube West Taxi Association (NANDUWE) and the Witwatersrand Taxi Association (WATA) has been ongoing since 2015. 

The rival associations are at loggerheads over six taxi routes, which are seen to be highly profitable. 

On Monday, members of NANDUWE blocked off certain roads in Soweto following a high court order which ruled in favour of WATA last week. 

Both associations believe that this issue was started by the government and needs to be resolved by them. 

NANDUWE's deputy secretary, Solly Moletsane, said: “When you approach and ask the government, why can’t you solve this problem? They say ‘we don’t know how it happened but we are going to follow up’ then they come back and say ‘our juniors, we find that thing was done by our juniors.’”

WATA spokesperson Hamilton Miya said that in 2015, a junior transport official signed a permit allowing NANDUWE to operate on routes that previously belonged to them. 

“It’s because of that paper that was signed by a junior official who was not permitted to sign that paper.” 

Gauteng transport MEC, Kedibone Diale-Tlabela, confirmed that their department was not clean and certain individuals were being probed. 

“There’s a lot of fraudulent activities that happened. We have currently stopped registration of new applicants because we are still trying to deal with the challenges. Obviously, we will need to act on fraudulent and corrupt activities that have been happening."