As part of a two-day strike called by the local taxi organisations to protest the end of an incentive program, two buses were set ablaze on Monday in Cape Town, South Africa.
The Western Cape provincial government, which is home to Cape Town’s legislative center, recently declared it will end an incentive program for taxi drivers that promoted safe driving habits and discouraged illicit activity.
But after a little over a year, it had to discontinue the program owing to a lack of financing, which infuriated the taxi organisations and caused them to call for a two-day strike in the city starting on Monday.
According to accounts, there were long lines at bus stops around 6 am as people waited for transportation to get to work and school. The associations could not be reached right away for comment.
The witness claimed that an unknown person attacked a bus and shot at the tires to stop it from moving. He or she also claimed that people leaped out of the windows, injuring a woman.
“No passengers or drivers were injured,” Bronwen Dyke-Beyer, a spokesperson of Golden Arrow Bus Services, which runs a fleet of 1,100 buses in Cape Town, told newsmen, confirming that one of its buses was set alight.
She said that the business was unaware of the culprit. Although there had been a number of incidents involving buses run by Golden Arrow and MyCiTi, the city’s rapid transit system, during the morning, the situation was under control, according to JP Smith, manager of safety and security for Cape Town.
“The buses are running and they are being escorted by the police,” he said.