KZN Transport heads address mourners at Richards Bay Memorial Service

KZN Transport Department’s political and administrative heads graced the Richards Bay Memorial Service to remember fourteen people who died in a road accident involving a taxi and a truck.

Addressing tearful mourners, provincial transport MEC, Mr Bheki Cele said: "Such an incident is happening for the first time to you, but it must the last. We don’t need this. It might be the first one for you, but it is not the first one for us. May this not happen again. Such incidents are a clarion call to safety on our roads."

He said the KZN Department of Health was providing psychologists to deal with their grief and address their trauma in a professional way because the psychological and emotional bruises they had sustained as a result of their lost loved ones was bound to stay with them for some time.

Mr Cele said his Department’s Road Safety manager Mr. Bongani Nxumalo was assisting the bereaved to make claims from the Road Accident Fund.

"We must let the dead go - let the bereaved grieve, and let them cry as we call the names of the departed ones," said Mr Cele as he named those who died amid wailings from the bereaved.

KZN Transport Department CEO Dr Kwazi Mbanjwa thanked provincial and national MPs who attended the function and said that although the time had come for the dead to die, "but that does not justify negligence. The driver must account what caused 14 people to die so that no more accidents take place."

Dr Mbanjwa said such incidents undermine the confidence society has in the taxi industry as a public service provider and that the community must not allow taxi drivers to do wrong. He added that although it was not a must that his Department should pay for funeral costs, it was appropriate that government should be in solidarity with the families who had lost their loved ones in this tragic way.

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