KZN transport department to hire 600 locals to boost safety after weekend road carnage

The recruitment of 600 people across local district and provincial levels to serve in road safety campaigns for the next five years is one of the interventions mooted by KwaZulu-Natal MEC of transport and infrastructure Siboniso Duma to counter road fatalities.

Speaking in Durban on Monday after three accidents claimed the lives of 21 people on Saturday, Duma announced a raft of measures including the return to Alufakwa — a campaign to clamp down on lawbreakers. 

In the first accident at about 10am on Saturday, six MK party members travelling from Estcourt to former president Jacob Zuma’s homestead in Nkandla died when the taxi in which they were travelling rolled down an embankment and caught alight.

Ten other passengers were taken to hospital.

In another accident, on the R622 between Greytown and Mooi River, 12 people were killed, including a grade 8 pupil from Michaelhouse school, Garth Finnermore, whose parents, also died in the crash. His brother, Harry, 12, is fighting for his life in the Hilton Life hospital.

Duma said four Lesotho nationals were among the dead and they would approach the Lesotho high commission in Pretoria through the department of international relations and co-operation to discuss the repatriation of their bodies.

In the third incident, three people died and three were injured in a head-on collision between a bakkie and car on the R74 at the Sappi intersection near KwaDukuza on the north coast.

Duma has declared a week of mourning.

“We are assigning a team of highly experienced officials to visit the families starting from today [Monday]. Each family is facing circumstances that are unique. Our response is tailor-made to help each family in the manner that shows empathy,” said Duma. 

“It has been a policy of the department to assist road accident victims whenever they are more than five. It becomes a serious tragedy when there are more than five people,” said Duma.

The MEC said the department was intent on strong enforcement and warned motorists “our traffic officers will have no mercy towards errant motorists and people who are violating the law”. 

He said the department had staged a roadblock in Msunduzi municipality on Sunday where vehicles were stopped and some motorists were found guilty of various transgressions.

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