Remarks by Mpumalanga Safety, Security and Liaison MEC
Vusi Shongwe at the memorial service of 15 people who died in a Pretoria car
accident
30 June 2011
Programme Director
Acting Executive Mayor Clr Sipho Ntlailane
Member of Parliament Ms Grace Tseke
Bereaved families
Accident Survivors
Families of the survivors
Local leadership – Councilors, Religious leaders, Traditional
leadership, especially Chief Lefifi, Government representatives from – COGTA,
Department of Education, Public Works, Roads and Transport, COSATU
representatives
Before I can read my remarks, I want first to convey our condolences on behalf of the provincial government of Mpumalanga.
We are all shocked and sad at the same time.
On behalf of the provincial government “Sithi duduzekani, akwehlanga lungehlanga!”
Nobody planned this gathering, let us therefore be strong in our faith and accept that it was God’s plan that our fellow Mpumalanga citizens had to leave us tragically as it happened on Sunday after that fatal accident which involved two taxis.
We feel your pain, and we want to encourage you to be strong as we ask
God to give you strength in order to be able to deal with this.
Car accidents are like a gun that has just fired a shot. We cannot change anything, but to let go. They do not give us information, they are tragic.
I have been briefed that in the spirit of Ubuntu, the taxi associations which are responsible for commuting passengers from Marapyne to Pankop and the one that commutes people from Lefiso to Marapyne visited the survivors in Jubilee Hospital.
As a government, we appreciate this kind of gesture. It shows that our taxi owners also care about their customers. We are also saddened by the fact that both drivers of the mini-buses also passed on.
I have been told that the two affected taxi associations have pledged R32 000 to assist the bereaved families. This is indeed touching.
I am told even our Mayor Councilor Tiny Mthimunye who could not be with
us due to other engagements, also visited the survivors and the bereaved
families.
Ladies and gentlemen, as you might be aware that Traffic Management was transferred to my department as from the beginning of June.
This my third worst accident as an MEC for this department. Three weeks
ago, I witnessed two horrible accidents in Piet Retief and Standerton where each
claimed 12 lives and the other 5 lives respectively.
After being informed about this one, I asked myself, a question that says, what is it that we can do really to stop this carnage?
Is it the roads that we use or is it bad driving by our road users? Have we as a government done enough to ensure safety of our road users?
I am battling to get answers because people have lost their lives. As a department we are involved on many initiatives to educate our road users.
We have what we call Road Safety Education, where we encourage the drivers to rest when they are tired. We encourage them to stick to the rules of driving. We encourage them not to overload people or whatever in their vehicles.
We encourage our road users to check their vehicles before undertaking any trips. People should check whether their tires are worthy to be utilized, we want people to check brakes on their vehicles. People should not drink and drive.
Ladies and gentlemen, these accidents occur day and night and we as a provincial government have had enough of them.
Today we are marking the end of the Youth Month, we are sad that some of the souls lost were high school learners. As a province, we have lost young brains who possible had greater dreams for their future which could assisted our communities.
Even in the two accidents which I have already mentioned, it was mostly
the young people who lost their lives, worse they were coming from church.
In conclusion ladies and gentlemen, I have instructed my officials from Traffic Management to facilitate counseling for these bereaved families. It should also be extended to the learners at schools because when schools re-open, learners may not cope with the fact that they have lost some of their colleagues.
More importantly, I am committing my department to assist these families by burying these people.
