Bodies pile up as Cape Town taxi violence continues to rage in bloody Cata and Codeta rivalry

Taxi owner Charmaine Bailey, 56, was shot dead during a meeting in Wynberg, Cape Town. (Photo: Facebook)

By Velani Ludidi

16 Jun 2023

Four people have died in four months with two killed in Paarl just days apart as the fight over the contested B97 route erupts again.

Route B97 stretches between Bellville and Paarl and is again the source of the renewed taxi violence that has flared up again in the Western Cape.

This was confirmed by Santaco [SA National Taxi Council] spokesperson Nceba Enge to the Daily Maverick.

“We can’t say explicitly why there is this violence other than saying it’s the B97 route,” he said.

Enge also confirmed that between the two rival taxi associations, the Cape Amalgamated Taxi Association (Cata) and the Congress for Democratic Taxi Associations (Codeta), one of them broke one of the peace agreement deals which led to the fallout between the associations.

“We quickly met to look into this and pleaded that there should be no bloodshed but you cannot control how a person thinks. We are pleading with our members to allow the executive to remedy the situation.”

This weekend, the chairperson of Codeta in Paarl, Siyabulela Mandyoli will be laid to rest. He was fatally shot in front of his house while chatting with his wife on 6 June. Four days later, a taxi operator from Cata was fatally shot inside his vehicle also in Paarl. Daily Maverick could not confirm the name of the deceased.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Paarl rocked by second taxi-related killing in a week

Another taxi owner whose full name has not been established was killed in Khayelitsha Site C on Sunday, 11 June but his killing was not confirmed to be linked to the ongoing taxi violence by both the police and the Ministry of Mobility.

In April 2023, Sizwe Khobocwana — the chairperson of Route 1 between Khayelitsha, Wynberg and Claremont — was shot repeatedly in his vehicle in front of his home on Dorado Road, Kuils River.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Cape Town Codeta taxi boss gunned down outside home

taxi violence Taxi owner Charmaine Bailey, 56, was shot dead during a meeting in Wynberg, Cape Town. (Photo: Facebook)

A month later, Charmaine Bailey — Cata secretary and a training officer for the Cata Regional Taxi Council — was fatally shot during a meeting at Wynberg.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Yet another taxi kingpin gunned down in Cape Town as industry violence intensifies

While some of the killings do not happen around the Paarl-Bellville route, victims are often attacked due to affiliation and sometimes the positions they hold in the associations.

The 4th quarter crime statistics (January- March 2023) showed that there were 10 taxi-related murders. Of these, nine occurred in the City of Cape Town and one in the Garden Route. During the same period, there were two attempted murders.

History of taxi violence in Paarl

In 2021, rival taxi associations Cata and Codeta were locked in a dispute over which group had the rights to the B97 route between the Bellville taxi rank and Mbekweni, Paarl.

More than 80 people were killed between January and August 2021 amid accusations of route invasions and extortion.

The then MEC Daylin Mitchell suspended the route and forced the disputing parties into arbitration talks. The B97 route was suspended for two months in July 2021 and then for an additional three months from the end of November 2021.

While this led to a noticeable decrease in taxi killings, it severely disrupted passengers and businesses.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Commuter struggle: Talks between warring taxi associations hit deadlock

After nearly 18 months of closure, the route was officially open on 8 December 2022. Associations had agreed to a cease-fire to find solutions through meaningful dialogue.

Longer-term solutions agreed upon by the associations included asking the government to avoid creating conflict by issuing operating licences for the same route to different taxi associations and that the industry must be subsidised.

United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa and the General Secretary of the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) Zwelinzima Vavi were part of the arbitration process.

From the documents, Cata argued that Cata Boland Association and Paarl Alliance used to work together as far back as 1995 and in 2018, Paarl Alliance became affiliated with Codeta and started poaching members from Cata Boland Association. This was not disputed by Codeta.

“The majority of Cata Boland Association members were defeated in this competition and were forced to surrender by joining Paarl Alliance. However, when all the Cata Boland Association members moved to Paarl Alliance, they did so with operating licences that were issued while they belonged to Cata Boland Association,” reads the document.

Cata believes that an operating licence is not supposed to automatically move with individuals when they decide to move to another association.

This poaching of members led to the formation of the Codeta-aligned Paarl Alliance in Paarl. Codeta has bases in Khayelitsha while Cata is based in Nyanga. Almost every minibus taxi in the Western Cape is aligned either to Cata or Codeta with Santaco being the umbrella organisation.

Codeta believes Cata was given a monopoly over B97 and wants the route to be shared.

Holomisa said while he was not aware of the renewed violence it did not come as a shock. “Both the then minister (Fikile Mbalula) and MEC promised to attend what we raised. They are people of cameras [they like the spotlight], they must go back to the documents and fix the mess they created.”

Holomisa strongly criticised the Western Cape Government for issuing operating permits to two different associations. He said the government failed to point out a clear way forward without fear or favour as to which association had breached operating terms and conditions.

What the Western Cape government did do was to introduce a subsidy programme called the Blue Dot — a pilot project meant to incentivise taxi drivers in improving and adopting safer driving habits. The project was created by the provincial government in late 2020 and had seen drivers being rewarded for their adherence by analysing data from onboard trackers fitted to participating vehicles, monitoring routes and feedback from passengers and the greater public. 800 taxis have participated in the project across the province.

The project ceased operations on 30 November 2022 because of a lack of funding. The MEC at the time said it needed the support of the national government to fund the continuation and expansion of this powerful pilot programme. Funding this programme is the mandate of the national department.

One of the key findings of the 2020 Commission of Inquiry into taxi violence in Gauteng, headed by Justice Jeremiah Shongwe, was that because taxi associations are not regulated, they often allow taxi operators without operating licences to join their associations. This leads to fierce competition between taxi associations over contested and lucrative routes. Consequently, violent disputes over saturated routes flare up among the associations.

Former MEC of Transport Bonginkosi Madikizela has for years argued that failure by the government to subsidise this industry also contributes to the violence. “The government wants the industry to formalise itself before it can be subsidised, I have a different view. The National government must take the lead in formalising the sector and then subsidise it.

In the Western Cape alone, the minibus taxi industry makes 1.5 million per passenger trip per day, compared to about 240,000 for Golden Arrow Bus, yet GABS receives more than R1.- billion from the government through Public Transport Operations Grant, and around 35,000 for MyCity Bus Service, yet receiving over R1-billion from Government through Public Transport Network Grant. This arrangement is not sustainable.”

Madikizela resigned as Western Cape DA provincial leader and as MEC for Transport and Public Works after a Daily Maverick investigation found he had claimed in his official biography that he had a BCom degree.

Rebecca Campbell, spokesperson of Mobility MEC said Mackenzie is engaging Santaco leadership to address the violence and work towards stability in the industry.

“He has also called priority meetings with the SAPS, the Western Cape Minister of Police Oversight and Community Safety, and the National Prosecuting Authority.

Western Cape Mobility Department officials have been working around the clock — in constant communication with all stakeholders, coordinating with enforcement agencies and conducting observations on the ground to assess operations and the threat to commuters.”

Codeta was formed after the Cape Peninsula taxi war was brought to an end on 8 March 1992 when the Langa, Gugulethu and Nyanga Taxi Association (Lagunya) and Western Cape Black Taxi Association (Webta), were collapsed into a united taxi association.

Cata broke away from Codeta in October 1994.

It is believed that the roots of the taxi violence in Cape Town can be traced back to October 1990, when a shootout between Lagunya and Webta taxi operators outside the Golden Acre shopping mall in the city centre occurred.

Tensions between the two associations had been there since around 1986, when the formation of Webta upset Lagunya’s monopoly of the routes in the area. DM

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History of taxi violence in Paarl