Pretoria - The laws of this government are taking food from the mouths of young people who are trying to survive and sending them to the streets and possibly a life of crime.
This frustration was expressed by young tuk-tuk drivers and the Tuk-Tuk Eersterust Association after the Tshwane Metro Police Department impounded 38 tuk tuk taxis for operating without proper documentation.
Spokesperson for the department Senior Superintendent Isaac Mahamba said the vehicles were impounded because a lot of drivers were found to be operating without driving licences and some of the vehicles had expired discs.
"We do sympathise with them because they are earning a living as they should, unfortunately everybody who earns a living in the country must do so within the frame of the laws of the country.
"These vehicles operate on public roads and lift people so they need to do so by complying with what the law of the country," said Mahamba.
However, Ethan Engelbrecht from the Tuk-Tuk Eersterust Association said the association was registered and has been in operation for about seven years and was completing its process to obtain permits with the Gauteng transport board.
He said the emergence of the tuk-tuk business has been a great contribution to society in the sense of employment creation and safety for elderly pensioners and pupils who are collected from their homes and taken right to the entrance of their destination for just R12.
He said at least 300 young people have been taken off the streets since the emergence of this mode of public transport and today they are responsible young adults who earn a living and help take care of their families in a country where unemployment is rife.
"We are in the process of helping some of the drivers with getting their learners and drivers licences in order. We are not leaving them just like that.
"We took a lot of young people out of the streets and gave them a way to be responsible and put food on the table. When the traffic police come and take their tuk-tuk vehicles what is going to happen to them?", asked Engelbrecht.
He said this was not a high profit job but a means for people to survive, making it expensive to retrieve an impounded tuk tuk vehicle because the fines issued between the driver and the owner could cost as much as R4 500."
He said they have been working well and co-existing peacefully with the local taxi associations.
However, spokesperson for the Tshwane taxi industry McDonald Makata said their problems with tuk-tuk vehicles was that they were not regulated and did not meet the standards to obtain permits as public transport.
"They are not properly regulated because anybody can just buy a tuk tuk and start operating. What we are saying is that if they are going to operate they must do so within the law as is required with us. We spend a lot of money just to get a taxi on the road because of the many things we need to get permits for. That process and law must he applied across the board."
Driver, Michael Schoeman, said the government must facilitate a fair process for tuk-tuk drivers to also acquire permits because preventing them from working will just subject them to poverty.
Pretoria News