Wonder Hlongwa
Police have been blamed for the latest spate of taxi wars in Gauteng, which has claimed 20 lives in the past two weeks.
Both the provincial transport department and taxi organisations say police either turn a blind eye to taxi-related crime or are involved in the crimes themselves.
In the past two weeks, 21 people, including two policemen, have been arrested for crimes related to taxi violence, says the co-ordinator of the South African Police Service’s national taxi violence investigations, Vincent Harris.
“Two policemen were arrested for their involvement in violence in the Soshanguve area,” says Harris. Because of the sensitivity of the case, he could not supply more details.
At a meeting organised by the Gauteng Department of Transport and attended by representatives of trade unions, women’s groups and youth structures this week, communities reiterated their call for a judicial commission of inquiry into the violence.
The department’s Kate Bapela says the violence is complicated by the involvement of civil servants, especially police officers who own taxis.
Pretoria’s Soshanguve township has been hit the hardest, with 24 deaths in five months related to taxi violence.
Disgruntled taxi drivers in the township have threatened to blockade major national streets to get the government’s attention.
Themba Mgabhi of the National Taxi Drivers’ Organisation, which has a membership of 35 000, says his organisation knows who the killers are and it wants to submit their names to the government, but it has not had an opportunity to do so.
He says members of his organisation have told him about government officials who also own taxis. His list includes the names of a provincial MEC and a number of policemen.
“In Germiston we submitted five names of known hit men to the police, but they have not been arrested. We think the owners also work hand-in-hand with the taxi violence investigating team,” says Mgabhi.
His organisation is demanding the immediate arrest of all known hit men, a commission of inquiry and the dismissal of all government officials who own taxis.
Bapela says that nine months after the adoption of the provincial taxi Act, the government is still registering taxis in an attempt to regulate the industry and control routes wracked by violence.
In KwaZulu-Natal, police have also been implicated in taxi violence which has cost 10 lives in the past six weeks. But police representative Vishnu Naidoo denies this.
Says George Mahlalela, KwaZulu- Natal’s provincial director of transport: “I wonder why he is denying such an obvious thing. Although we don’t have concrete evidence, we know that policemen own taxis.
“If a taxi owner’s association is fighting with another association, he protects the one in which he has interests.”
KwaZulu-Natal’s Interim Minibus Taxi Bill will be tabled again towards the end of this month. The provincial Cabinet rejected it in March on the grounds that the transport department had not consulted properly before tabling it.