By 
Putco says it has obtained replacement vehicles to restore its service after 51 of its buses were burnt on Monday night in Mpumalanga.
The South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) has declined to respond to accusations of the minibus taxi industry’s involvement in the arson.
“Santaco will not comment on the matter as it is subject to police investigations and to stay clear of interfering in the work of law enforcement,” spokesperson Mmatshikhidi Rebecca Phala said.
The Kwandebele United Local and Long Distance Taxi Association has distanced itself from the incident.
“As the association, we pride ourselves on resolving issues through dialogue and we do not condone violent acts. We urge Putco to engage us in case of any differences that might occur, as we always do from our side, because clearly it’s going to have a negative bearing on our commuters and community.
“We commit to assist law enforcement agencies to apprehend the perpetrators,” it said.
Police have arrested two suspects in connection with the torching of the buses in the Moloto, Wolwekraal, Siyabuswa and Vaalbank depots.
Putco has been in talks with taxi associations in the area in recent months, who accused the bus operator of taking their customers due to a cheaper service.
Putco spokesperson Lindokuhle Xulu said the buses ferried between 18,000 to 22,000 passengers a day. “So they would have been affected.”
He said they are confident they will be able to restore services by Wednesday.
“Our MD was able to give us a mandate and a go-ahead to say we must identify pool buses (buses that are on standby in case a bus is damaged). We have been able to take those standby buses that are not allocated certain routes and we have got 50 buses we are going to allocate to this area so we restore service to normal soon.”
Xulu said they had boosted security and remained on high alert while police worked to uncover the motive for the attacks.
“Police have arrested two individuals who are linked to this. They were working around the clock. Police said they were going to arrest more so we are hoping we will see more arrests and uncover what happened instead of speculating.”
Transport minister Barbara Creecy has labelled the incident economic sabotage.
TimesLIVE
Comments