Chronicle Editor
Rumbidzayi Zinyuke and Freeman Razemba
The haulage truck driver involved in an accident that claimed the lives of 16 church members along the Harare- Masvingo highway is facing 16 culpable homicide charges while his company’s operator’s licence has been cancelled pending investigations.
This comes as Government has declared that every accident that happens would be thoroughly investigated and anyone found to be at fault brought to book.
Responding to questions from journalists during yesterday’s post-Cabinet briefing, Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Mr Felix Mhona said they had investigated the latest accident and established that the driver did not have relevant competency to drive public service vehicles, in line with the Road Traffic Act.
This would result in the operator’s license being cancelled while the driver would be charged in terms of the law, said Minister Mhona.
Punishing the driver and cancelling the transport company’s operator’s licence, he said, would send a stern warning to drivers and operators of public service vehicles that “the law will take its course to protect the safety and security of the travelling public”.
The blitz against negligent drivers is also expected to look into the conduct of police officers and other professionals on the road to ensure everyone does their job to prevent the loss of more lives.
Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Minister, Kazembe Kazembe, said his ministry would work with the Ministry of Transport to ensure the law was enforced.
“We are doing our utmost through the police to ensure that there is law enforcement. And not only that, we are working together with my counterpart, Minister Mhona, to leave no stone unturned in this regard.
“For starters, we are going to be investigating each and every incident of an accident, starting with this particular one that has just happened. We need to determine what caused the accident, was it a wrong decision by the driver, was it a mechanical fault, or was the bus overloaded,” he said.
Minister Kazembe said the investigation would also determine if the vehicle passed through roadblocks and why it was not apprehended in the event it was overloaded.
If vehicles that were not roadworthy were allowed to pass through a roadblock and eventually had an accident, the police officers manning the roadblocks would also be held accountable.
“We are doing that as an intervention to ensure that we bring sanity on our roads. But secondly, we are also working together with my counterparts to ensure that we will equip our police officers to be able to carry out their mandate, to be able to account for those who are driving under the influence of alcohol and, you know, drugs and substances,” he added.
Ministers Mhona and Kazembe also issued a joint statement urging drivers to be cautious on the road during the Workers’ Day holiday today.
They called on operators to desist from overworking their drivers, which results in fatigue. “Drivers should stick to regulated speed limits and speeding is one of the major causes of fatal road crashes.
“Driving under the influence of alcohol, drugs and substances is a punishable offence and is totally unacceptable. It is the Government’s fervent hope that we shall all strive to make this year’s Workers’ Day holiday accident-free by exercising extreme caution and adhering to all the traffic laws,” said Minister Mhona.
Police and the Vehicle Inspectorate Department would be participating in joint enforcement operations throughout the Workers’ Day holiday to sniff out defective vehicles and drivers without adequate paperwork to be on the road.
Meanwhile, the Government is seized with rehabilitating the damaged sections of the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls road to ensure the road is safe for travellers.
But Minister Mhona said the target was to reconstruct the whole 760km from Beitbridge to Bulawayo and Bulawayo to Victoria Falls.
“We started attending to the damaged sections of Victoria Falls road but we later realised that the road was weaker.
“Initially, we targeted 60km of bad sections but the moment we attended to the bad sections, we also witnessed that potholes were mushrooming on the areas that were not attended to.
“So we are finalising on the partners to work on the entire stretch which is close to 760km, starting from Beitbridge-Makhado-Bulawayo-Victoria Falls,” he said.@TheHerald
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Bongani Ndlovu