|
Taxi violence barbaric - Radebe
29/05/2007 19:36 - (SA)
Johannesburg - The government's taxi recapitalisation programme was a solution to destructive competition for profitable taxi routes, said Transport Minister Jeff Radebe on Tuesday.
Radebe condemned recent taxi violence around Johannesburg as "barbarism".
The conversion of radius permits to operating licences for operators would bring proper regulation to the industry, he said.
The permits did not specify routes to be used which had led to destructive competition and violence.
The licences would do so, also making compliance issues easier for law enforcement dealing with "taxi-route invaders".
The operating licensing boards had received more than 119 000 applications for operating licences and had approved nearly 90 000.
Gauteng MEC for public transport, roads and works Ignatius Jacobs also condemned the violence and offered condolences to families of victims.
Bloody taxi shootings
"The office of the provincial registrar has been seriously engaging and also mediating between various taxi associations with the objective of finalising and publishing all taxi routes in the Government Gazette to avoid disputes and conflicts."
The department intended concluding this process in this financial year, he said.
A man was killed and a number wounded at the Bree Street taxi rank in the bloodiest of three taxi-related shootings in Johannesburg on Monday.
A 28-year-old driver was attacked when he stopped at an intersection on Hendrik Potgieter Drive in Honeydew.
Another driver was shot and wounded at a different intersection along the same road 20 minutes later by two occupants of a minibus taxi.
On Sunday night, a 44-year-old taxi owner and his friend died in a car in Zola, Soweto, when drive-by gunmen fired 16 shots at them with a 9mm pistol and an R-5 rifle.
- SAPA
|
News
