Dying over taxi routes
A scramble for lucrative taxi operating routes led to the death of three people in the gun battle at the Brook Street taxi rank.
|||Durban - A scramble for lucrative taxi operating routes led to the death of a pedestrian, a security guard and a man believed to have been involved in the gun battle at the Brook Street taxi rank on Wednesday morning.
In a statement on Wednesday, provincial Transport, Community Safety and Liaison MEC Willies Mchunu said he had been informed that the morning gunfight was between Sonke, a local taxi association, and Zamokuhle, a taxi association operating between Durban and the South Coast.
Mchunu said there was an interdict, granted in July, prohibiting the local association from encroaching on other associations’ routes.
This was after Zamokuhle approached the court for an interdict because it felt threatened by the local association.
A week later, its deputy chairman, Mlungisi Ngcobo, was gunned down near Port Shepstone.
Sonke is chaired by a prominent local family in the transport industry.
“We are now seeking an order against Sonke’s contempt for the interdict,” Mchunu said. “The two associations recently had a conflict. In Wednesday’s shooting the police did a sterling job and arrested 11 suspects and recovered 25 firearms ranging from R-5 service issued rifles, 9 millimetre pistols and shotguns.”
He said in the light of the serious concerns about these acts of violence, he had ordered the Transport, Community Safety and Liaison departments, SAPS and eThekwini Metro Police to work together to ensure there was public transport stability in and around eThekwini and in Brook Street in particular.
“We want to ensure that the perpetrators are brought to book and do everything (legally) possible that the arrested suspects do not easily get bail. We have asked eThekwini Municipality to consider securing taxi ranks by appointing security companies, installing access control security cameras and monitoring the movement of people in the rank,” he said.
In July, the Sunday Times reported that a taxi war was imminent in the province for the control of lucrative routes.
Zamokuhle reportedly has 62 taxi operators as members and 300 taxis.
Gerald Ferror, president of the KZN Taxi Alliance, said: “This is much deeper than meets the eye. The time of violence is over irrespective of how powerful you are or how many vehicles you have. With the existing intelligence this violence should have been done with by now.”
About the firearms recovered at the taxi rank shooting, Ferror said that power and money gave certain families access to things not within the reach of others.
DA spokeswoman for police, Dianne Kohler Barnard, said the recovery of the firearms could have huge consequences.
“If handled with care, those firearms could lead to many other crimes committed in the past,” she said.
IFP chairman, Blessed Gwala, condemned the taxi-rank killings.
“We are concerned about the alarming number of illegal guns turning up in KZN. There should be tougher penalties for illegal possession of firearms. Fraud, corruption and poor implementation of the Firearms Control Act means that people who are not fit to possess firearms are issued with gun certificates, licences and permits.
“We need to close the gap where legal guns leak into the illegal pool,” Gwala said.
Daily News