Durban – The government will be putting together a multi-pronged task team to deal with taxi violence, which has claimed 24 lives in KwaZulu-Natal since the start of the year.
According to police, the victims were from the Ugu and Harry Gwala Districts in KZN.
Police Minister Bheki Cele made the announcement on Thursday during a meeting at the Ugu sports centre in Gamalakhe, on the South Coast.
The meeting followed a number of vicious attacks in which taxi owners, passengers and operators were injured or killed.
Representatives of 18 taxi associations and other taxi stakeholders attended the meeting.
The task team will include SAPS members and officials from the Department of Transport, Community Safety and Liaison, South African National Taxi Council (Santaco), the SA Revenue Service (Sars) and the Special Investigating Unit (SIU).
Cele said the team would hold owners and associations liable to explain how they accumulate their wealth as well as how they spend it.
He said Sars and the SIU would promote accountability among those in the taxi industry.
“The death toll due to taxi violence has more than tripled compared to the same period last year where five people were killed in this area. If there is no special intervention we might reach crisis proportions, so we can’t fold our arms and say this is a transport problem only. This is a safety issue that needs police intervention and a buy-in from other departments to deal with some of the underlying causes of this violence.
“The fact that some taxi associations can collect millions of rand annually through member fees which are not taxed and the association's officials can decide how to use that money, which is unaccounted for, cannot be allowed to continue. It is clear we as government and especially as law enforcers need to clean house, clean this industry at the level of ‘izinkabi’ (hitmen) because they are being paid by someone, and also we need to clean at the level of ownership,” the minister said.
IOL