Commuters lick their wounds after taxi strike

By Emily Setona

QWAQWA – The impact of last week’s taxi strike continues to rear its head among those who were affected, especially the cleaning staff of Maluti Crescent Mall and other vulnerable groups.

According to the supervisor of cleaning staff at the mall Paulinah Mofokeng, the taxi strike that happened during the first week of October in Maluti-a-Phofung’s (Map) community of Qwaqwa had a devastating impact for her and her staff who were late or couldn’t get to work and now have to contend with pay cuts.

“The strike really affected us because we couldn’t get to work on time, and we couldn’t manage to keep the mall clean because of a shortage of staff. As the supervisor I work with a team of 14 staff members but last week only nine cleaners pitched because the five who come for the afternoon shift struggled to get transport and didn’t come to work at all.

“Our employer has enforced pay cuts for the late coming and for those who weren’t able to come to work. I really struggled to clean the mall; it was not a good experience for me, because we aren’t going to get our full pay for this month as well,” Mofokeng said in an interview with the Guard.

The centre manager for Maluti Crescent Mall Philip Ngozo said they were very disturbed by the taxi protests because some of the mall’s staff couldn’t get to work and the foot count and turnover for the day were low.

SASSA pension grant recipient Matsebo Tshabalala at the MTN taxi rank.

“We were very disrupted by the taxi protests because my staff, cleaners and the security they struggled to get to work. Even the SASSA pensioners were battling to come to the centre, even going back was an issue. Our foot count was very low, and the turnover was very low. This strike had an extremely negative impact on our sales for the day. Our sales for the day count a lot to sustain the mall, so it was a very sad exercise from our side,” Ngozo said to The Guard.

SASSA pension grant recipient Matsebo Tshabalala of Thaba Bosiu said the taxi strike made it hard to get to and from the Central Business District (CBD) – referred to as ‘Setsing’ by residents.

“We spent the whole day from around 7.00am to 4.00pm waiting for taxis to take us home not knowing when the situation would improve. It was not a good experience because I come all the way from Thaba Bosiu,” Tshabalala said.