Swakop taxi drivers' demonstration continues

ABOUT 100 taxi drivers protested the arrest of two of their counterparts in Swakopmund on Saturday, and demanded that the owner of Riteway Service Station must lift the ban on taxis filling up at his premises.

They blocked the entrance to this service station, whose owner Keith Wright had banned taxis from using it, claiming that they block the entrance and accusing some of the drivers of intimidating his customers.

One of the taxi drivers, Mathew Hamukonda, was arrested on Friday morning after he went there to refuel his vehicle. He was released on bail on the same day. The other taxi driver, a certain E Shitima, had his vehicle clamped on Saturday morning when he went to the service station to refuel. He allegedly removed the clamped wheel, put on a spare wheel and drove away.

Simon Kambwa, representative of the Nambia Public Passenger Transport Association (NPPTA) concluded the following: ‘’You found the complex build without out a public transport drop-off zone, a lot of people don’t have cars and it won’t cost the municipality anything. This is a problem all over Namibia and if the municipality don’t build dropping zones they will always have a problem with taxis.’’