Africa-Press – Mozambique. The Mozambican Interior Ministry has suspended 20 police officers who somehow failed to spot gross irregularities in vehicles and drivers involved in traffic accidents that claimed 35 lives in the southern province of Gaza on Monday.
A minibus-taxi (known as a chapa) crashed near the 3rd February village in Manhica district, about 80 kilometres north of Maputo city, killing 24 people. At Maciene in Chongoene district, also in Gaza province, 11 people died and eight were seriously injured in another road accident, when a minibus travelling from South Africa to Massinga, in Inhambane, hit a truck travelling between Chongoene and the Gaza provincial capital, Xai-Xai.
The weather was poor, with dense fog in southern Gaza, but that is unlikely to have been the main cause of the accidents. The minibuses were ignoring the rule that passenger transport vehicles should not be on the roads before 05.00. At least one of the buses was waved through the police checkpoint at Incoluane at around 04.45
Neither of the two minibus drivers possessed the type of licence necessary to drive passenger vehicles. Yet the police allowed them to pass through the checkpoint.
Furthermore, the first minibus was grossly overloaded. It had the legal capacity for a maximum of 15 passengers, but was carrying 27. And so it was an accident waiting to happen. It skidded off the road, and plunged into a river, killing 27 people.
When, the following day, the Secretary of State for Transport and Logistics, Chinguane Mabote, visited the Incoluane checkpoint , he was told that the police always let through minibuses owned by “the bosses” (i.e. senior figures in the ruling Frelimo Party).
Filmed by cameras of the independent television station STV, Mabote demanded an end to this practice. All vehicles using passing through the checkpoint must be inspected in exactly the same way.
Anyone travelling on Mozambican roads knows that many of the buses, minibuses and trucks are not roadworthy. Bald tyres and failing headlights are often all too visible. And yet the police at the checkpoints let them pass – often in exchange for bribes.
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