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Truck driver protest ends peacefully in Tshwane

Screengrab of truck protest in Pretoria Picture: Youtube
Screengrab of truck protest in Pretoria Picture: Youtube

Truckers who caused peak-hour traffic mayhem in and around the capital Pretoria on Wednesday are heading back to Mpumalanga after offloading their demands at the Union Buildings.

Their gripe was over an announcement by President Jacob Zuma during the State of the Nation address that power utility Eskom would sign power purchase agreements with Independent Power Producers who use renewable energy.

The Coal Transportation Forum‚ an organisation of truck owners‚ said this would effectively take them out of business‚ result in job losses‚ the closure of power stations and coal mines‚ which would turn Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces — whose lifeline is coal — into ghost areas.

Their key message in a memorandum handed over at the Union Buildings was that government should avert the imminent loss of up to 30 000 jobs and that no mine or power station should be closed due to the contracting of Independent Power Producers.

Forum spokesperson Mary Padi said they were assured they would get a response within seven days.

She said it would be far more expensive to produce electricity using renewable energy than coal. “It does not make economic sense‚” she said.

The forum argued that South Africa still had 300 years of coal power generation capacity left and added that billions had recently been invested in coal rail infrastructure.

Chairperson Steve Nkoana insisted that the protesting truck drivers did not cause traffic mayhem as the vehicles adhered to rules of the roads.

“There was no intention to cause mayhem. There was no mayhem. These are heavy duty vehicles and they were moving slow to ovoid them (crashing into each other). Safety comes first‚” he said after handing over the memorandum.

The more than 100 trucks were parked at the old Marabastad bus depot as the truck owners joined by their drivers marched to Union Buildings and later dispersed peacefully.

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