Department of Transport speaks out against JHB taxi violence

By Rhodé Marshall
12 March 2008

The Department of Transport says that it condemns the recent spate of taxi violence that has occurred in Johannesburg over the past week.

Spokesperson for the department, Collen Msibi says that they are working closely with the police to ensure that those who are responsible for the continuing acts of violence are arrested. He says that they are working on different programmes to try and solve the problem.

“We believe that the Taxi Recap Programme will go a long way in terms of cooling the violence, through the issue of route based operating licensing,” says Msibi.

Msibi says the current route permits are going to be changed in order to solve the current fights over routes.

“As we advance with the conversion of radius permits to route-based operating licences, we believe that the conversion process will confine operators to specific routes within the specified area,” he explains.