The Commander of the police’s Taxi Violence Task Team in Gauteng, Mohamed Bayat, says they don’t have the capacity to successfully investigate all taxi-related murders in the province.
He’s testifying at the Commission of Inquiry into Taxi violence in Gauteng currently under way in Parktown, Johannesburg. It was set up in September last year following a spate of taxi-related killings.
Bayat has been answering questions on why over 500 taxi-related killings, some dating back to 2012, are still unresolved.
He says that only 12 officers had been focusing on these cases and that each investigating officer had to tackle up to 70 cases.
Bayat says he hopes the situation will improve since 20 additional officers have recently been brought in to strengthen the team.
“With the lack of manpower, if you have the amount of dockets we have got compared to the number of investigating officers we had, it gives them approximately 70 dockets per investigating officer. And you got other inhibiting factors, where court cases take up time. So, investigating officers are pulled away from investigations for extended periods of time.”
Lieutenant Colonel Bayat: We have received 20 new members last week and we were only 4 Investigating Officers. We are getting capacitated. 30 official will do us justice. #GPTaxiViolenceCommission
— Commission of Inquiry into Taxi Violence (@GPTaxiInquiry) October 5, 2020
Lieutenant Colonel Bayat: The other challenge is witnesses or rather victims are not interviewed at the crime scene because they are afraid and failure to get their details would mean you will not find them. #GPTaxiViolenceCommission
— Commission of Inquiry into Taxi Violence (@GPTaxiInquiry) October 5, 2020
