Pretoria – The South African National Taxi Council wants the police to arrest perpetrators involved in two shooting incidents that left one taxi operator dead and another injured in the city on Friday.
Police reacted to one shooting at about 4:20 pm at the corner of Lillian Ngoyi and Madiba streets where a 50-year old taxi operator was shot. He was certified dead at the scene by paramedics.
The second shooting occurred in Atteridgeville at about 6 pm at the Shongwe taxi rank.
“A 40-year old taxi operator was shot and injured while sitting inside a taxi,” the police said.
The organisation’s regional spokesperson McDonald Makata said the people involved in these violent acts were benefiting from taxi shootings and forget that passengers come first.
The Tshwane metro, he said, had recently become the scene of taxi shootings that took lives, and the industry wanted those responsible to be apprehended.
He said their membership would be terminated because they were bringing the industry into disrepute.
Police spokesperson Brigadier Mathapelo Peters said provincial SAPS commissioner Lieutenant-General Elias Mawela had ordered the urgent mobilisation of resources by the provincial team of detectives tasked with investigating taxi violence.
She said the police were appealing to witnesses, or anyone who may have information that could lead to the arrest of the suspects behind the latest two shootings, to report to the nearest police station or call the crime-stop number 08600 10111, or via the
MySAPS app that can be downloaded on to any smartphone. The information may be furnished anonymously.
Mawela said: “Taxi violence poses a huge threat to the safety and lives of innocent commuters. For this reason the investigators must urgently deploy all available resources towards apprehending the perpetrators and decisively curbing this violence.”
In July two people were shot and killed and two others hospitalised after a taxi shooting in Marabastad.
