Lack of control, management of taxi ranks contributory to industry violence

A lack of control and management of taxi rank infrastructure has been identified as some of the contributing reasons behind conflict and violence in the taxi industry.

These were the findings of the commission of inquiry into minibus-type taxi violence in the Gauteng province which were announced this week.

“Taxi associations have an arrangement with municipalities over the use of ranking facilities,” provincial roads and transport MEC Jacob Mamabolo said as he released the commission’s finding during a media briefing on Thursday.

“However, this often leads to the associations determining which operator gets to operate from there.

“Besides the lack of control when it comes to the ranking facilities, the other challenge is that the municipalities do not appropriately use the provisions of the NLTA (national land transportation act) to ensure that developers provide for public transport facilities as part of the development plan,” he said.

Mamabolo said this was a problem as taxi operators would create their own ranks – including areas near shopping centres.

Another challenge brought up during the commission was that the public transport and law-enforcement components of the municipalities were not sufficiently capacitated to carry out the responsibilities which were given to them by the NLTA.

“The law enforcement is generally controlled somewhere other than by the unit responsible for transport in the municipalities and they do not even include the NLTA as part of their performance targets for the year,” Mamabolo said.

Other findings made by the commission established by premier David Makhura , included that current information systems were inadequate and constituted to problems which led to taxi conflict and violence.

The commission made recommendations related to, among others, the underlying reasons of recurring violence in the industry, the legal and illegal activities of operators and how the minibus taxi business model contributed to the recurring violence, fatalities and instability in the industry.

The commission also found that although there were instances of positive co-operation, there were also cases where prosecutors were forced to either not prosecute or to withdraw the charges due to a lack of co-operation by the investigating officers.

“For those cases that ended up in court, there have been mixed outcomes – there have been cases where the accused were convicted and sentenced to varying periods while there have also been acquittals associated with reluctance by witnesses to testify for fear of being targeted,” Mamabolo said.

Where convictions were handed down, sentences ranged from a year in jail to life imprisonment.

In December 2020, the Tshwane metro said stage one of Centurion’s state-of-the-art taxi rank, located opposite Centurion mall, was complete.

The final touches and finishes to the rank was expected to commence in the next financial year.

Throughout 2020, a variety of taxi violence-related incidents were recorded in various parts of the city with several taxi operators, including when taxi association chairman Jabu Mahlangu were gunned down.

In September 2020, a 40-year-old taxi operator was shot and killed by unknown assailants while sitting in a taxi at the Atteridgeville rank, west of Pretoria.

Do you have more information about the story?

Please send us an email to editorial@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114.

For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites: Rekord East

For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram