After the alleged murder of a taxi driver in Pretoria on Tuesday, the colleagues of the deceased took to the street to avenge his killing. This is bad for SA.

It is bad, because people have now lost faith in the democratic institutions of government and as a result they end up taking matters in their own hands.

But then, who can blame them? We saw what happened in Johannesburg a few weeks ago and the failure of the SANDF that is deployed to deal with gang violence in Cape Town.

Clearly things are not getting better when it comes to violent crimes in the country.

It is disturbing that taxi drivers are now targeting all foreigners as if it is all of them who were involved in the alleged murder of the taxi driver.

The unintended consequences of this is the rise in xenophobia which is accompanied by looting of shops belonging to street vendors.

Laws of this country will not be respected and our diplomatic relations with the citizens of the countries involved will be compromised.

Law enforcement agencies must intervene to deal with this matter before it gets out of hand.

Tom Mhlanga, Braamfontein