Committee meets in Springs to discuss violence between Uber, Taxify and metered taxi drivers
How the Portfolio Committee on Roads and Transport plans to deal with the violence between Uber, Taxify and metered taxi drivers.
The Gauteng Portfolio Committee on Roads and Transport met at the Springs Civic Centre on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the ongoing violence between Uber, Taxify and metered taxi drivers.
The committee’s key elements are reliability, efficiency, affordability and integrated public transport for the people of Gauteng.
Also read: 5 Things you need to know about the Uber SA war
Members of the committee include personnel from the EMPD, JMPD, Gauteng Traffic Police and the SAPS.
The meeting came about as a result of the ongoing violence between Uber, Taxify and metered taxi drivers.
“We want to comfort the people of Gauteng because people have the right to choose their mode of transport,” says chairperson of the committee, Mafika Mgcina.
The members from the various law enforcement agencies discussed the various plans they had implemented to deal with the ongoing violence around the different parts of Gauteng.
“We had a joint operation with the EMPD and SAPS where we ensured there was high visibility of police in the hot spots, and we carried out random stop and search operations because we got intelligence that some drivers were carrying acid and petrol in their cars to harm other drivers,” says Abel Nkosi, the deputy director of the JMPD.
In the inner city, 50 officers were placed per shift to patrol around the Gautrain and Park stations to monitor crime and intimidation of drivers.
As a result, the JMPD was able to quell down incidents of intimidation.
Micheal Matjokotja, an inspector with the JMPD, says they are expecting a peak in these incidences during the Easter period.
The committee decided after a lot of discussion that they need to raise the ante in communicating with the public as people are fearful if they don’t know if law enforcement is winning the battle against this tide of violence.
As a result, they will create a team to communicate with the public from the various stakeholders in the committee.
Drivers prosecuted for public violence, intimidation, malicious damage of property must be made public as it gives people reassurance that law enforcement is doing their job.
The committee also vowed to continue working with state intelligence in a sustained manner as the sharing of information enables the officers to respond swiftly to incidents before they happen.
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