A battle over a main taxi route has sparked a running battle between two main taxi associations which closed down East London’s CBD momentarily on Friday.
Photographs showed an officer, with gun drawn, arresting a man during the fracas.
When the row between Uncedo Service Taxi Association (Usta) and the Border Alliance Taxi Association (Bata) turned violent, police raced to the scene and blocked off roads and maintained a strong presence.
The associations both claimed they shared the King William’s Town-East London route but the brawl appears to be around how the route is divided up.
National taxi council Santaco apparently sat the two two associations sat down late on Friday and tried to broker peace.
Usta spokesperson Welile Blayi said a clash broke out despite an agreement that each association would have a three-day run of the East London to Devana route, east of King William’s and would then hand it over to the other group.
Blayi claimed that they were blocked from using the route on Thursday when passengers were ordered off Usta taxis and told to use Bata’s taxis.
“We all agreed on this system earlier on this year and it has been working well up until now. We are going to sit in a meeting later on today to resolve the conflict,” Blayi said.
Attempts to reach a Bata spokesperson to give their side of the story proved fruitless.
Many taxi commuters had to walk to work or stay absent from their jobs on Friday.
Phelisa Tenge, who works at the Nompumelelo Clinic in Beacon Bay, said: “I could not go to work today. There were three of us who did not make it to work. I don’t know how I am going to get home”.
Noluvuyo Ndonga, a street vendor in the CBD, said: “I had just stocked up on new supplies and now I am losing out as I will not be able to sell as much as I would on a normal day. This taxi fight has inconvenienced me a lot. I depend on my business to be able to feed my children”.
A shop manager in the city centre, who asked not be named said he saw one person being beaten with stones and sticks.
He said police fired three rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. A man was seen being taken away in an ambulance.
Fear, panic and rumour spread through social networks with residents warning of major violence and even claiming a man had dead. But SAPs spokesperson Colonel Sibongile Soci said there had been no reports of anyone being shot dead in the altercation.
With police patrolling the CBD, only Caxton Street remained cordoned off...