Cape Town entrepreneur Anthony Gird believes South Africans need to celebrate more, so he started a champagne bar in his Cape Town restaurant, Honest Chocolate, a few months ago. Only, it’s spent a third of its existence unable to trade due to the ban on alcohol sales.
It was an optimistic move to start a venture like that during a lockdown, but now, after a week of taxi violence in the Cape that has prevented his staff from coming to work, even Gird is becoming discouraged and has fleetingly asked himself: "What’s the point?"
But he’s not ready to give up.
Gird and business partner Michael de Klerk also run an artisanal chocolate factory in the Woodstock area.
The six people they employ at their factory could not get to work last week. It was too dangerous to even try, as violence worsened between the Cape Amalgamated Taxi Association (Cata) and the Congress of Democratic Taxi Associations (Codeta) over access to a profitable route.
The pair did what they could before shuttering the Honest Chocolate factory. The restaurant, which employs nine people, was also shut.
The taxi turf war has been simmering since 2018, with at least 80 people believed to have been killed this year alone, including Cata taxi boss Victor Wiwi in April.
A change in leadership at both associations after the death of Codeta leader Vusumzi Miselo from illness last year is thought to have worsened the tension.
On the ground, businesses in a weak economic environment are facing disruption as staff have to stay away to stay safe.
At present, Golden Arrow buses are operating with police and army support, but workers still have to leave their jobs early, as there aren’t enough buses to meet demand.
It’s not predictable, so you can’t plan, says Gird, who has lost two weeks of manufacturing so far.
Though he says the law allows for "no work, no pay", he won’t penalise his staff, so he’s paid them for half the days they haven’t worked, and they’ve taken paid annual leave for the other half. His wife has also raised R10,000 to cover staff tips, after the restaurant was shut recently due to a Covid scare.
No-one has lost a cent of pay.
The impact of the taxi violence on business is not yet quantified, says the Cape Chamber of Commerce & Industry.
But it’s likely to be substantial, given the breadth of companies affected.
Pick n Pay spokesperson Tamra Veley says the retailer is trying to balance customer service and staff safety.
Eskom has stopped sending maintenance teams out to fix power faults.
"The ongoing taxi violence across Cape Town is posing a significant threat to the safety of Eskom specialised maintenance and support teams who travel in white minibuses that resemble taxis; [they] are at risk and we would not want them to be mistaken for taxis and potentially be targeted," the power utility said on Friday.
This means a "significant delay in restoration efforts" in areas with power disruptions.
Business Process Enabling SA, which represents the call centre industry, is revising its target of creating 500,000 jobs by 2030, says investor relations spokesperson Traci Freeman.
Taxi violence in the Cape, where 47% of SA’s call centres are located, is "not good for Brand SA", she says — particularly coming on top of the unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
Freeman is upbeat at first, telling the FM about the call centre industry and celebrating SA’s award, in April, as the most favoured offshore customer service centre location in an annual international survey.
In 2020, the sector added 17,500 new jobs, bringing the number of call centre agents servicing foreign firms to 80,000 (of a total 280,000 positions).
But the taxi violence has "definitely had an impact", says Freeman, as centres haven’t had enough staff and so haven’t been able to honour terms of their contracts in a "very competitive global market".
Global businesses using outsourced customer service centres can switch service providers in a day. "They say to a centre in India: ‘Take the 10 seats, there are not enough bums on seats in SA,’" says Freeman.
When asked if she expects the jobs to come back, she hesitates.
There’s no way in hell the taxi organisations are going to sit for two months without income
— Joanie Fredericks
Local call centre businesses have been using private transport operators and doing what they can to get employees to work, even going door to door to fetch staff. And some have put workers up in Cape hotels to ensure they can get to work safely.
But the industry has nonetheless lost millions, she says.
Jeremy Clayton, chair of hotel industry body Fedhasa in the Cape, says the biggest challenge in hospitality has been getting employees to work in the early mornings and late evenings. Staff working those shifts have been able to stay at their accommodation sites and hotels where possible, he says.
Similarly, Clarke’s restaurant and the popular Jason Bakery put up their employees in nearby hotels.
But for workers, it means leaving their families behind.
Reverend Mawande Lugongolo, who works in the communities of Nyanga and Philippi, tells the FM some mothers have had to leave their children unattended to stay near work.
"You have to choose between your kids, or going to work for your kids," he says. But the reality is that these parents "won’t be productive" at work, as they’re worrying about their families.
The violence, he says, is a blow to communities already struggling with lost jobs as a result of Covid. "Families are suffering. Workers are suffering with limited hours. Staff are being cut, pay is being cut," he says.
When schools opened on Monday, many children who have missed months of learning in lockdown were not at school in Nyanga, says Lugongolo, as parents feared for their safety and not all scholar transport services were running.
When bus services stopped last Tuesday after a Golden Arrow driver was murdered in the violence, people were stuck at their workplaces and had to walk kilometres in the dark in heavy rain to get home in the middle of the night.
With talks between Cata and Codeta deadlocked, despite intervention by transport minister Fikile Mbalula, Western Cape transport MEC Daylin Mitchell on Friday shut down the contested B97 route between Bellville and Paarl for two months.
Mitchell, who did not respond to requests for comment, has played hardball. The Golden Arrow service has increased its capacity and set up makeshift terminals outside police stations.
Cape Chamber of Commerce & Industry president Jacques Moolman says his organisation is "hopeful the move will be beneficial in heightening pressure on the warring parties to reach a compromise".
But the crisis is far from over.
Tafelsig community activist and private transport operator Joanie Fredericks tells the FM: "What is nerve-racking is that we fear some form of backlash."
The route that has been closed is very profitable, she explains, so "there’s no way in hell the organisations are going to sit for two months without income".
Fredericks’s private transport business, Ladies Own Transport Services, uses women drivers to transport women around the city. It has operated all but one day during the violence, as many of its clients work in retail and banking and are expected to be at work.
On the one day everyone stayed home, she had to write a letter to a customer’s employer, explaining that it was simply too dangerous to transport her to work.
But bosses don’t always understand, she says. "It’s like employers don’t watch the news about violence. They just say: ‘Turn up to work in my world.’"
The problem, in Fredericks’s view, is that taxi bosses have been given too much power and "allowed to operate with impunity for years".
As a taxi turf war rages unabated, workers and businesses are paying the price
— What it means:
Taxis have a monopoly in the province, with all other forms of transport sidelined. The trains don’t run often enough, and many have been destroyed by arson attacks. And violence has kept the MyCiTi buses from going into townships since 2018.
As a result, those who live in the townships must either walk long distances or catch a taxi.
A resident of Langa, who asks not to be named, takes two to three hours to get to his job in the suburbs. Currently, he must walk from Langa to Athlone to catch a taxi, but he says it’s dangerous and he fears being stabbed for his cellphone or money.
One of his employers tried to fetch him for work but was turned away on the N2 offramp near Langa, where men threatened to burn her car if she didn’t leave.
"It’s not good in this country these days," he says.
Meanwhile, Western Cape premier Alan Winde is considering approaching the high court to get a declaratory order that "mother bodies" such as Cata, Codeta and the Western Cape branch of the SA National Taxi Council (Santaco) be confined to specific geographic areas.
The provincial government is not financially supporting Santaco — of which both Cata and Codeta are members — until the violence abates. It’s hoping an interdict will prevent taxi bodies establishing themselves outside demarcated geographical areas, and stop turf wars.
According to Winde, the provincial government is "doing everything possible to ensure that our commuters can travel safely to work".
For Fredericks, however, the issue remains one of power. "The community is their biggest client," she says of the taxi operators. "But they don’t feel anything for the community. Something must be done."
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.