John Muyamba<\/b><\/p>\n
Africa-Press – Namibia. <\/strong><\/span>Taxis operators in Rundu staged a peaceful demonstration yesterday against the Namibia Public Passenger Transport Association (NPPTA), whom they want to boot out as they claim it is operating illegally.<\/p>\n The drivers claim that the rightful institution they want to deal with for the issuing of operation permits is the Rundu local authority.<\/p>\n Hundreds of taxi drivers marched around the streets of Rundu with posters to highlight their grievances about the NPPTA, which administers more than 800 taxis in the town.<\/p>\n \u201cThe drivers\u2019 registration certificate known as yellow stickers must be paid to the Rundu Town Council, like in other towns. From now on, moving forward, we don\u2019t want to engage any association as we would like to engage the town council,\u201d reads a petition they submitted to the Kavango East governor\u2019s office and to the Rundu Town Council yesterday. The drivers requested the local authority to speed up the process so that they can start registering their taxis there.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are in a democracy. We have freedom of speech, as long as you are not breaking the law. We now chose the Rundu Town Council to co-operate with us. As taxi drivers, we will not operate with any association because we are tired of losing our money without getting any benefits,\u201d the petitioners emphasised.<\/p>\n They furthermore claimed that they pay a yearly fee of N$1 400 for registration and other services, but they see no benefits in return as the association doesn\u2019t stand on their side when needed.<\/p>\n \u201cI was delegated to receive your petition, and I assure you that it will reach the intended office, which is the mayor\u2019s office. Thank you,\u201d said Sam Nekaro, the strategic executive for finance and IT at the council.<\/p>\n After receiving the petition, he highlighted that there was a motion where the council wanted to start administering taxi affairs. However, that was placed on hold at some point.<\/p>\n \u201cI will have to find out from the responsible department how far it went,\u201d Nekaro said.<\/p>\n He continued that when council started exploring that idea before putting it on hold, \u201cWe were using the case study of Windhoek, where we were trying to replicate what they are doing in this regard\u201d.<\/p>\n New Era was not successful in getting comment from the NPPTA chairperson on the matter before going to print.<\/p>\n For More News And Analysis About Namibia<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" John Muyamba Africa-Press – Namibia. Taxis operators in Rundu staged a peaceful demonstration yesterday against the Namibia Public Passenger Transport Association (NPPTA), whom they want to boot out as they claim it is operating illegally. The drivers claim that the rightful institution they want to deal with for the issuing of operation permits is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":55715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[234,236,233],"class_list":["post-55717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-namibia","tag-namibia"],"yoast_head":"\n