“It’s not as if we don’t know where drugs are being sold and who is selling them. We know. All that is needed is decisive action on your side.”
These words form part of a memorandum from the Border Alliance Taxi Association (Bata)/ Uncedo joint taxi forum in Makhanda.
Witnessed by drivers and owners of about 50 taxis, forum convener Lungisa Sixaba handed it to station commander Colonel Mbulelo Pika in front of the Makhanda police station on Thursday.
They brought traffic to a halt outside the station in busy Beaufort Street.
The show of strength came amid community outrage after gender-based violence attacks around Makhanda in the past two weeks left two women dead and one bruised and traumatised.
Community members have for two weeks demonstrated outside the magistrate’s court to oppose bail for a man charged with the murder of a woman found dead in eNkanini informal settlement on the eve of the Easter weekend on April 14.
This week, as they stood outside the court again, in solidarity with the survivor of a brutal attack in Riebeek East on April 15, news broke that a young woman had been found dead in her boyfriend’s room in M Street, Tantyi, the night before.
Thursday’s memorandum from the taxi associations made a direct link between an explosion in drug abuse in the town and these attacks.
“Women are raped, abused and killed in our city,” the memorandum reads.
“The majority of perpetrators are [substance addicts]. As taxi associations in Makhanda, we abhor this barbaric act.”
Sixaba said the taxi industry would again gather at the police station after 15 working days.
“We call upon you to provide us with a blueprint of how this scourge will be addressed,” the memorandum read.
“Your community wants to work with you but we cannot work with you unless there is a plan of action.
“It’s not as if we don’t know where drugs are being sold and who is selling them.
“We know. All that is needed is decisive action on your side.”
Pika addressed the group, emphasising that the role of the police was only part of the picture and that the community should make their feelings known about bail applications for alleged perpetrators.
He told DispatchLIVE: “We will seriously consider this memorandum. We are grateful that people come to us when they see that things are not going right in their communities.
“Most importantly, we appreciate the fact that they are here not for disruption but to say they want to work together with us.”
Frustrated community members were increasingly taking the law into their own hands, Sixaba noted in an earlier interview.
The most recent, according to a report from police spokesperson Warrant-Officer Majola Nkohli, happened at about 9.45pm on April 11.
“Police were summoned to a complaint of mob justice in Extension 6, Joza (Makhanda),” Nkohli told the Dispatch.
“At the scene, police found the lifeless body of a man with multiple injuries who was later identified as Lazola Maqoko, 29.”
Police opened a case of murder and urged anyone with information that could lead to the arrest of the suspects to contact Joza Police Station or Crime Stop on 08600-10111.
The taxis left the police station at about 11am and proceeded to the Makana traffic department in Knight Street, where they met traffic officers and traffic chief Coenraad Hanekom.
Sixaba pleaded for traffic officials to avoid holding roadblocks during morning and afternoon peak times, and to be more lenient (give warnings before fines) on minor transgressions.
Hanekom said he would speak to his staff about the timing of roadblocks, as well as the prioritisation of offences that endanger lives.
DispatchLIVE
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