Update

GEORGE NEWS - The wife of slain taxi boss, Prince Mmola (32), says his family would've liked to have seen a heftier sentence passed down to Ndabezitha Ngxangane*, the driver of the getaway vehicle used during Mmola's murder in Thembalethu in 2019. 

The accused was sentenced to 16 years imprisonment in the Thembalethu Circuit High Court on Thursday 28 July. He was also declared unfit to possess a firearm.

"I don't think 16 years is enough. He has the same guilt as the person who pulled the trigger," said Mmola's wife, Virginia, who is now left to raise their two children on her own. 

"He knew what the plan was and he went along knowing that someone was going to be killed. We are glad he was caught and that he was prosecuted, but he should've gotten more. Everything has changed for us. I don't know how to explain it. 

"My husband was the breadwinner, but I work at a restaurant now to look after the children."

In cold blood

Mmola was shot at about 09:00 on Saturday 27 July 2019 while he was sitting in his Isuzu bakkie in Liwani Street, Zone 8.

On arrival at the crime scene, police members found him still seated behind the steering wheel of his Isuzu bakkie. He had sustained multiple gunshot wounds to his head and had already died.

On the day of the shooting, the then Eden Cluster Commander in George, Maj-Gen Oswald Reddy, assigned a multi-disciplinary team from the Eden Cluster to assist Thembalethu detectives in probing the murder.

"Initial investigation revealed that the victim was accosted by an unknown suspect while seated in his bakkie in the street," said Southern Cape police spokesperson, Capt Malcolm Pojie.

"Witness reports suggest that the suspect, who was armed with a handgun, fired multiple shots through the windscreen of the bakkie. He ran away whilst being pursued by bystanders. He then got into a getaway car and sped off," said Pojie.

Investigators praised

The investigation was handed over to an investigating officer from the provincial detectives' taxi violence task team shortly after initial investigation into the motive and circumstances commenced.

An intensive investigation led to Ngxangane's arrest on 14 April 2020 in Ngcobo in the Eastern Cape. He has been in custody since and was found guilty in the Thembalethu Circuit High Court for his role in the murder on 14 June this year. The other suspect is yet to be arrested.

Pojie said Judge Nathan Erasmus had nothing but praise for the tenacity of the investigation team. "The judge said the meticulous manner in which they conducted the investigation deserved to be noted. He also commended the court orderly for the professional and human conduct displayed towards both the accused as well as the family of the deceased."

Taxi boss Prince Mmola was only 32 when he was shot and killed in Thembalethu in 2019.

Third taxi-related shooting

This is not the first time that someone from the local taxi industry has been gunned down in Thembalethu. In 2016, Uncedo chairman Wesley Sikhumbuzo Mini was shot multiple times in front of his home in Zone 7. Mini was murdered after he came back from a taxi meeting at the Thembalethu taxi rank.

In 2014 a local taxi owner and pastor, Tom Queba, was gunned down inside his taxi on the N2. Zanemali Laho was arrested and in 2015 he was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in the Circuit High Court for the murder.

* The police could not confirm Ngxangane's age by the time of going to press.

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