The Sunday News
Robin Muchetu, Senior reporter
POLICE have warned the public against boarding unregistered pirate taxis popularly known as mshikashika as cases of crimes involving these taxis have been on the increase.
Bulawayo police spokesperson Inspector Precious Simango said this while responding to a case of a local man who was robbed last week in Kumalo suburb when he boarded a pirate taxi.
“We have always said it is not safe to board these unregistered pirate taxis because of the several robberies that have occurred involving these vehicles. But the public still flocks to them because they say they are efficient in that they can be dropped off at their doorsteps,” she said.
Insp Simango said while pirate taxis were fast and flexible in terms of picking up and dropping passengers where they want, they were illegal.
“The Honda Fits and other small cars are not registered public transport operators, they pick up and drop off passengers at undesignated places which is an offence and we charge each passenger $5 for that offence and we will not stop charging those passengers. So they have to use commuter omnibuses that are registered and follow authorised routes,” she added.
A Bulawayo man is lucky to be alive after he was attacked by four men who pretended to be picking up passengers from town to Kumalo suburb using their pirate taxi while they were actually robbers.
The man who cannot be named, said he was attacked on 7 February after boarding a pirate taxi around 11pm.
“At around 11pm, a silver-grey car pulled up with four individuals inside and signalled that they were also going in the same direction and they only needed one more person. As we neared Landau Road in Khumalo one of the individuals in the car asked the driver to slow down as he was not very familiar with the area and was about to drop off. When we stopped all the individuals turned to me and pulled out knives. They then demanded my belongings.”
The man said he was pushed out of the car and assaulted and at one time he thought he was going to die. Bulawayo United Public Transporters’ Association administrative director Mr Albert Ncube said they have been complaining about pirate taxis.
“These operators cause havoc during the day as they ‘steal’ customers from undesignated places in the city using their pirate vehicles then at night the same cars carry robbers, we have had many people who have been robbed or attacked after boarding these Honda Fits, we want this to come to an end,” he said.
