Transportation of goods from road to rail is urgent, Fikile Mbalula says following Pongola crash

Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula says they are in urgent talks with the Department of Public Enterprises to move the transportation of goods from roads to the railway.

Mbalula was speaking at a mass funeral of 15 of the people who died last weekend when a truck collided head-on with a bakkie in Pongola in KwaZulu-Natal.

The funeral was held on Saturday.

Twenty people, mostly children, lost their lives in the crash.

“We are working with the Department of Public Enterprises to get rid of these trucks on the road. The goods they are transporting – coal and so forth, can be transported using trains. This is what we are busy with Mr Pravin Gordhan,” said Mbalula.

“This accident showed us that this work has to be done immediately,” the minister added.

Meanwhile, a mother who lost her all three of her children to the Pongola horror crash says she is struggling to come to terms with her loss.

Nonhlanhla Ntshangase’s children – a set of twins and their 10-year-old sibling were laid to rest on Friday.

Ntshangase was also one of the first few people at the accident scene and saw the aftermath of the crash.

She says it is a situation that is hard to accept.

“I am trying to cope even though the situation is the way it is. My children are gone but I am trying to accept.”

The trauma of that moment is one that cannot be conveyed in words, but it is through putting our faith in the Almighty that we believe that the nation, the community, and the families of the deceased, will find healing. https://t.co/Id4oLB8wMr pic.twitter.com/z40d7V296j

— FIKILE MBALULA | MR FIX (@MbalulaFikile) September 24, 2022