Taxi associations from all over the Merafong City Local Municipality buried the hatchet for a special event.

The National Secretary of South African National Taxi Council (SANTACO), Daki Qumbu, led a delegation of national, provincial, and regional officials to an event at the Carletonville Taxi Rank on January 7. The group met in the section set out for commuters to the Eastern Cape.

The event, an emergency Hlokomela Drive intervention, called for unity, safety, and collective responsibility among those in the local minibus taxi industry.

The industry has been going through an extremely rough time in the Carletonville, Khutsong, and Blybank area, as about 60 people have been killed as part of taxi-related violence during the past five years. The first arrests were made by the special taxi violence unit in November.

A member of this unit, Captain Samuel Maila, also attended the event.

He called on the representatives to stop the killings. The social crime officer of the police in Carletonville, Captain Platiek Janse van Vuuren, also called for an end to the violence.

Qumbu and other members also talked about the importance of vehicle safety, obedience to road traffic legislation, and the fact that commuters are the industry’s backbone and should be treated as such.