One more killed in taxi conflict

THE shooting that claimed the life of a person and left five others including a taxi driver, injured in Joe Slovo near Milnerton has been attributed to the ongoing violence over taxi routes, according to Transport MEC Donald Grant.

Police were deployed to the Joe Slovo taxi rank yesterday after armed men opened fire on the corner of Democracy and Freedom roads.

“Information was received that an unknown white Quantum minibus taxi stopped at the taxi rank and four unidentified males got out and randomly started shooting at the persons at the taxi rank. Five taxi owners, one taxi driver and a bystander were wounded,” said police spokesperson FC van Wyk.

He said one taxi owner drove himself to a nearby hospital and the others were taken to hospital by ambulance and a private vehicle.

One of those shot died later in hospital.

Van Wyk said provincial detectives were allocated to investigate the case.

Late last month there were 12 taxi-related shootings in a period of 48 hours, which led to nine deaths and three people being wounded.

This shooting resulted in police deploying a tactical response and a national intervention unit at areas they identified as hotspots.

Two suspects were arrested in Gugulethu and two unlicensed firearms were seized in relation to one of the shootings last month.

Grant told the Cape Times he was trying to get the leadership of the SA National Taxi Council (Santaco) in the Western Cape to work with the department.

He said that once Santaco leadership was elected in August, the department could work with the taxi organisation.

“All this is linked to ranks and routes which people have invaded. The reason all this is happening is because there are route invasions. People are not obeying the law and so we are going to sharpen up our oversight and make sure people don’t go off routes.”

He said his department would talk to the City about installing CCTV cameras even though it takes time to install such devices.

“If you have a look where that shooting took place, infrastructure there is very limited. If you have a look to see how the taxi industry is increasing in size in the Western Cape of late, it is a massive number of other people coming into the industry, they are not approved and a lot of them are illegal,” said Grant.

Community leader Nosicelo Nceku said: “Innocent people are losing their lives. The government need to prioritise the taxi violence. We believe more than half of taxi bosses and drivers have illegal guns on them, they carry them every day and it cannot be that hard for police to confiscate them.”

Anyone with information about the incident can SMS Crime Stop on 08600 10111.