 
SPEECH BY THE KWAZULU-NATAL MINISTER OF TRANSPORT, MR S’BU NDEBELE: EMPANGENI INTERFAITH GATHERING4 November 2003
Programme Director What a pleasure the past four weeks have been. Travelling all over the province, with leaders from all religious communities, worshiping and praying whole heartedly for divine intervention in ending the road carnage that is gripping our country. We started in Umlazi’s King Zwelithini Stadium, thousands gathered, Hindu, Moslem, Christian, African Traditionalists , Sangomas, Shembe, Jews, we all had one mission, to pray, mediate, worship, in all manners of our diverse religions for an end to the deaths on our roads. A week latter, together again, the department and all religious communities, went to Pietermaritzburg. On that week, we in KwaZulu-Natal were hosting the World Roads Congress. We were blessed in that National Minister of Transport, Dullah Omar, who was in the province for the Roads Congress was able to join us for the worshiping. We were also hard hit, as on that week, 18 people had been killed at the Tugela Ferry when a truck ploughed into pensioners and hawkers. That has not dampened our spirits, it has not stopped us from again praying harder and begging God, is all manners of our religious diversity, from continuing to beg for divine intervention. Last week, we were in Ladysmith, more than five thousands people gathered, singing, dancing, praying, mediating, and again in our diversity praising the almighty and begging for his intervention to end the road carnage and save the lives of our people when they are travelling. Today, it is our turn again in Empangeni. We have together with your religious leaders called you here to come pray with us, in all your diversity, pray to Buddha, to Allah, through Jesus, Amadlozi, we want an end to the road carnage. We have been criticised for calling you out, in all your beautiful religions for calling you out to seek divine intervention. Our critics are those, who like the devil, bad spirits, would like us to fail. Like the devil, they enjoy it that hundreds of our people continue to perish on our roads, they use as they have always done, the deaths of our people as political points. No dead on our roads should be politicised. By calling you out in your thousands, Buddhists, Christians, Moslems, Jews, Izangoma, we want to send out a clear message, we will do all in power, and ask God, Allah, Buddha, Umveli, to help us in this fight against deaths on our roads, a fight we shall surely win as we defeated Apartheid. I want to thank all clergy from various religious faiths for giving their full support to the Road Safety Awareness Campaigns we are conducting. As the KwaZulu-Natal department of Transport, our mandate is to create a safe road environment through the annual reduction of road crashes. You are all familiar with our Zero Tolerance Campaign. You also know the role we have played towards road safety awareness culture in this province. Who does not know the famous Siyabakhumbula Campaign? Who does not know Asiphephe and our famous "Operation Shanela". There might have been a time in history when road safety was only a matter of traffic authorities and not a serious issue to be preached about and prayed for. However, today the spate of road crashes places road safety along such sins like murder and suicide. The spectre of grieving families that we see almost on daily basis as a result of road crashes is a warning to all and sundry that Road Safety is no longer a challenge for "traffic authorities", it has become a moral and a religious challenge of the twenty first century. As we gather from various religious faiths I request that we go back to our churches, mosques, temples and every other place of worship and preach to our fellow worshipers about the observance of road rules. One day we shall learn that non-compliance with traffic regulations is as much a moral travesty as is compliance with evil acts such as murder. Having said that, I would like to first pass my sincere condolences to the families of all those who passed away in horrible accidents. In fact over the past three weeks more than 79 bystanders have died gruesome deaths while 61 people got seriously injured in truck related crashes in South Africa. Independent research place the following as major contributory factors to all these fatal crashes:
As National and Provincial Departments of Transport we started long ago to embark upon an initiative to encourage safe driving habits. Last week the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport. Hosted the National Driver of the year competition through which we aim to inculcate safe driving habits. For the first time all 9 provinces participated and for the first time again there was a women category. In short, Government is making huge efforts to ensure that road users are safe. Contrary to some prevailing misconceptions, South Africa is not a religion-less country but on the contrary we are a multi-faith society that respects and honours all religious faiths. The fact that we are gathered here as government and diverse religious faiths is a confirmation of our belief that our efforts as government are worthless if they exclude religion, the very centre and core of the lives of more than 65% of the people of this country. We are now approaching the festive season and KwaZulu-Natal will have an influx of tourists from all provinces and abroad. As I talk to you right now our officials are busy planning for the vigorous December Road Safety Programme. Included in this programme is vigorous enforcement, education and communication. I believe by involving all religious faiths our road safety message will become a spiritual matter. Let us all go back and spread this message to our congregations so that our roads will be safe for everybody. In the final analysis, I want to thank all organizers of our interfaith gatherings. Our province and indeed the whole country now recognize the fact that road safety is the matter of government and a person as it is the matter of religion.
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