ALMOST 100 Kempton Park and Tembisa taxis were impounded by the Gauteng Traffic Department on Thursday and Friday morning.

The taxi violence task team, which includes the traffic department, Johannesburg Metro Police and police held the operation as part of an effort to monitor taxi violence in the area.

More than 44 taxis were seized on Thursday and over 50 on Friday morning and escorted to Germiston.

Gauteng Traffic Department, the metro police as well as police were seen escorting the vehicles along Pretoria Road, into CR Swart Drive and then onto Monument Road on Friday.

Traffic department spokeswoman, Busaphi Nxumalo, said the vehicles would be kept until the taxi violence issue could be resolved.

“This is part of a provincial operation to curb taxi violence in areas where we see necessary. The vehicles have all been taken to Germiston and will be kept there until such time that peace can be restored,” Nxumalo explained.

“After the negotiations, taxi owners will be allowed to collect their vehicles from the safekeeping.”

The Gauteng Transport Department will convene with the relevant taxi associations and have negotiations to come up with a solution to the taxi violence.

This comes after two taxi owners were gunned down in Kempton and another in Tembisa in the past two months.

Last month, Rapson Mbazima Ngoveni was shot and killed in his car on the corner of Mooirivier Drive and Maraboe Street in Norkem Park.

Earlier this month 30-year-old Themba Zungu, who was believed to be a taxi owner, was gunned down in cold blood in front of his brother on Pomona Road. Zungu was also killed in his car.

In Tembisa, an unknown number of suspects in a bakkie shot dead a 53-year-old taxi owner. A police officer was wounded in the leg after the suspects turned their guns on him.

“By conducting these provincial operations, we are trying to avoid more deaths. Innocent people are losing their lives due to taxi violence and it needs to come to an end,” Nxumalo concluded.