A highly charged meeting at the Kliptown Police Station on Wednesday to quell the feuding between e-hailing services and taxi operators centred on regulation.
'The first thing I want to say is that we are not fighting e-hailing operators," said Myekeleni Eric Madlala, chairperson of the Soweto Taxi Services (STS).
Madlala was speaking at a tense meeting at the Kliptown Police Station in Soweto on Wednesday, called to try to quell tensions between taxi and e-hailing operations after ongoing attacks on e-hailing drivers and their vehicles.
"What has led to the problems that brought us here today is that our brothers in the e-hailing sector no longer know who they are," said Madlala.
"They no longer operate as e-hailing cars. These are no longer e-hailing vehicles and they also know that," said Madlala.
"We have a big problem in our malls. Our e-hailing brothers no longer operate on their apps," he continued.
"They now pick up customers in malls in lines as if they operated a taxi rank," Madlala said. "That does not sit well with us. You cannot build a home on top of another person's home."
On Monday, 5 June, a Hyundai Atos was torched in Protea Glen, Soweto, with the driver narrowly evading the assailants. This incident was preceded by attacks on e-hailing vehicles at the Maponya Mall, also in Soweto....
