Concrete moves are needed to address conflict in the Johannesburg taxi industry ahead of the 2010 Soccer World Cup, following the shooting of a passenger and a driver on the West Rand, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Monday.
”If drivers and associations are killing each other now over these routes, there is going to be an all out war when 2010 rolls around and there is competition over routes via the airport and stadiums,” said Johannesburg councillor Ann Barnes in a statement.
Proper enforcement of laws and a body ”with teeth” would contribute to passenger safety, said Barnes.
The taxi industry needed to realise that passengers were the most vital component of their trade, said Barnes, and urged passengers to put taxi associations and drivers in their place.
”Drivers shooting each other and by extension their passengers, does not bode well for the future of the industry,” said Barnes.
”You kill your passengers, you kill your source of income. This is not hard to understand.”
One taxi passenger was killed and three others injured at a rank outside the Clearwater Mall on Hendrik Potgieter Drive in Johannesburg on Sunday when shots were fired from a passing taxi.
In a second shooting on the road — which passes through a densely populated residential and shopping area — a taxi driver was shot several times and died after he was forced off the road by another taxi on Sunday evening .
The Gauteng department of transport said it would decide on a course of action once the police had concluded that the shootings were related to taxi violence.
Police spokesperson Inspector Karen Jacobs said police were investigating and would continue to maintain a presence at the ranks, as they had been doing over the past few weeks.
At a meeting last month with Gauteng taxi registrar Sam Ledwaba, the Faraday Taxi Association (FTA) and the Dobsonville, Roodepoort, Leratong, Johannesburg Taxi Association (Dorljota) said the registrar had failed to decide who could use the route that passes the mall and that agreements reached had never been implemented.
The meeting was convened in an attempt to curb the violence plaguing commuters and operators in that area.
Ledwaba gave both organisations permission to use the route until an appeal over who could use it was finalised.
Neither Ledwaba nor the two associations could be reached for comment on Monday, but last week Gauteng provincial transport minister Ignatius Jacobs
was quoted as saying that there were no disputes over routes in Gauteng.
He said that a dispute over a route could not be used as justification for violence.
Jacobs said more than 65% of people who used public transport used taxis and it was therefore even more important to ensure safety, affordability, accessibility, comfort and environmental sustenance in the industry and that violence would not help the industry grow. – Sapa