In Focus

Cele visits Hout Bay residents following a spike in taxi violence

Police Minister Bheki Cele visited the Hout Bay community in the Western Cape following a spate of taxi-related violence in the area.

Police Minister Bheki Cele, alongside the Community Safety MEC Alan Winde and the Provincial Transport Department, held a Ministerial Stakeholder Engagement at the Hout Bay Sports field on Monday, 8 April 2019. The meeting was to discuss matters relating to the recent spike in taxi violence in the Hout Bay area, where a deadly shootout took place over a week ago, leaving four people dead and two passengers wounded.

The Western Cape Transport MEC Donald Grant said the incident appeared to be a revenge attack due to an ongoing dispute over a route between Hout Bay and Cape Town. The year-long conflict is said to be between operators in the Hout Bay area affiliated with the Congress of Democratic Taxi Associations (CODESA) and Cape Amalgamated Taxi Association (CATA), who wanted access to the route after its permits were taken over by MyCiTi.

Cele said the MyCiTi issue will be tabled and dealt with accordingly and said they would be engaging with Transport Minister Blade Nzimande on Tuesday, 9 April 2019, regarding the issues raised by the community.

At the engagement, Hout Bay residents expressed their displeasure at the lack of service delivery and effective policing in the area. Resident Portia Nkomane said public transport is not safe in Hout Bay and added that residents feared for their lives everyday when they use public transport, as they do not know whether they will return to their families safely.

“All we need is safer transport,” Nkomane said.

Abenathi Gqomo
a.gqomo@politicalanalysis.co.za