‘Please bring back my driver’s licence’

Friday, 13 May brought a whole lot of bad luck to a local taxi driver who transports commuters from Carletonville to Khutsong. That night, Mr Felix Alfredo Cuco handed his driver’s licence over to someone and has not seen it since. “I cannot feed my family without my driver’s licence; it’s like I am out of a job without it,” says the distressed driver. He explains how he had decided to put R100’s worth of petrol in the tank before taking his passengers to Khutsong. At the old police station in Carletonville along the way, however, the vehicle got stuck and he couldn’t get it going again.

The passengers, who were tired and impatient, demanded their money back but Cuco had already spent most of it on the petrol. A while later, one of the passengers decided to flag another taxi down and take that one instead. Cuco tried to convince the driver to transport him and his passengers, even though he did not have the money on hand to pay him. He assured him that he would let his boss know what had happened and that the owner would pay him back. The taxi driver was wary, however, and insisted on taking Cuco’s driver’s licence as security.

Cuco, meanwhile, admits that he would not recognise the person who took his licence and says he was so flustered that he forgot to take the taxi’s registration number. He is appealing to the driver to bring it back. Anyone with information in connection with the incident is urged to contact him at 083 491 5446 or 081 557 1346.