Q&A with Gauteng transport MEC Jacob Mamabolo on taxi violence in the province

Were you surprised?

I find it difficult to understand how in a country that has chosen the rule of law we have violence of this magnitude and scale in the taxi industry.

Why have successive transport MECs allowed it to happen?

I find it unacceptable that we have officials in the department of transport, in the police, in the metro police, in all these departments, who allow such heinous crimes.

Can the recommendations of the commission be implemented by such an ineffective bureaucracy and structures?

They are implementable and will be implemented. The provincial government has made a decision that we as a department and myself as MEC must bring back to cabinet a proper action plan that has got timelines and is costed.

How are you going to fix the situation using the same bureaucracy and structures that enabled it?

One of the recommendations is that we must take action against officials currently in the department and those that have retired, and hold them criminally liable for whatever role they would have played. So that bureaucratic difficulty will be cracked when we hold them criminally liable.

Is that likely?

I'm going to see to it that it is done. Everybody implicated in one form or another will be removed from the department. The commission says we must open criminal cases, so we'll do that.

When will the first case be opened?

We will open cases before June.

Can any of this happen without effective law enforcement?

No.

That's the situation you're in, isn't it?

The report says the department should appoint a specialised, highly trained unit .

Wasn't the taxi violence task team appointed 10 years ago supposed to be such a unit?

The way it was constituted and the resourcing was completely off the mark. We know what to do. It will be done to the best level of professionalism, it won't be a repeat of what has failed.

If the department couldn't resource one task team, how will it resource all the stuff you're talking about?

We will reprioritise our budget. Because dealing with taxi violence is protecting the people of this province. If we don't it is going to spill over into other crimes.

Why must we believe that the same government that allowed this situation is going to fix it?

This is a different administration, it has already set up a commission when people said we won't be able to and it won't give us anything.

All it's given us are recommendations that read like a fanciful wish list, surely?

These powerful recommendations are not going to gather dust, they're going to be implemented.

So this whole exercise is not just a pre-election publicity stunt?

I reject that with the contempt it deserves.

So why wait until there's an election before having this inquiry and promising to end taxi violence?

I appointed the inquiry after taking office in 2019.