Two train sets that were burnt to ashes at Cape Town station on Sunday were worth an estimated R33m, according to Metrorail.
"Cape Town Central station has been the target of at least seven, and possibly eight, separate arson incidents since July 2018. Surely after the first incident you put the most stringent measures in place to ensure this doesn’t happen again? How is it that criminals can so brazenly burn our trains time and again and get away with it?" asked Plato.
"If we are to maintain law and order in this city there needs to consequences for criminal actions, and it is only national government’s South African Police Service , through their detective services, and the National Prosecuting Authority who can get results with these cases," he added. Walker said that legislation needed to be amended to act as more of a deterrent for train arsonists as they could only currently be charged with malicious damage to property because trains were not regarded as a fixed structure.
"We need to now move to a point where the act of setting alight train sets is no longer just seen as malicious damage to property. Currently the law categorises it as only malicious damage to property. If you go and open a case it’s not a case of arson as it would be with a permanent fixed structure,” he told CapeTalk.
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