Durban — Acting KwaZulu-Natal Premier Nomagugu Simelane said they had not received complaints about truck and road issues at Pongola. Residents might have submitted complaints to the local municipality but she was yet to find out.
Simelane led a government delegation on Monday to inspect the accident scene on the N2 in Pongola where 20 people died in a horrific crash between a bakkie and a truck.
Among the fatalities were 18 children between the ages of 5 and 12.
The KZN authorities said one body was counted twice, which meant that in total, 20 people were killed.
Since the accident, residents of Pongola have pulled out old social media posts in which they were complaining about trucks using the N2.
In a Twitter post by Jabu Hansen from 2019, he tagged the Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula, and explained the situation of the trucks and challenges on the N2.
Moreover, last month Hansen posted a video of trucks speeding and overtaking each other on the N2 on his Twitter account. He tagged Mbalula and the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) and described what was happening on the road.
But Simelane said: “We have not received any complaints with regards to the issues of this particular road. The residents might have spoken to their local municipality but we are not sure.
“We are still going to engage with the local municipality. We only learnt this morning about the challenges on this particular road.”
Simelane was accompanied by MEC for Transport Community Safety and Liaison Sipho Hlomuka, acting MEC for the Department of Education Bongi Sithole-Moloi, officials from Sanral and national Department of Transport officials.
Simelane said they discovered that on a normal day, the road used to have 1 000 trucks using it. But that drastically increased over the months to 5 000 trucks a day. She said this should have rung a bell for the local and district government to act.
“The local and district government should have raised the issue with the provincial and national government. However, that is water under the bridge; we are here now. These families need to know where to go if they need assistance, as it is not easy to lose more than one family member,” she said.
She said Hlomuka would deal with the shortage of Road Traffic Inspectorate (RTI) officials.
She added that the provincial government would meet the RTI towards the end of this week to come up with a proper plan of how to deal with the matter.
Simelane said the bakkie was overloaded and the department would deal with that issue because it was unacceptable.
Daily News