Africa-Press – Mozambique. Following Saturday night’s horrific road accident at Maluana, in Maputo province, in which 32 people lost their lives, the Mozambican Transport Ministry on Wednesday sacked Ana Simoes, the General Director of the National Road Transport Institute (INATRO), and Claudio Zunguze, the National Director of Transport and Safety in the Ministry.
INATRO and the National Directorate are the two bodies responsible for guaranteeing road safety.
Ana Simões had been running INATRO and its predecessor, INATTER (National Institute of Terrestrial Transport) since 2015. That same year Claudio Zunguza was appointed to head the National Directorate of Transport and Safety.
Looking after road safety is one of INATRO’s key tasks, including inspecting bus companies and other road transport operators.
The Maluana tragedy occurred on Saturday evening when a bus travelling from Beira to Maputo attempted to overtake a lorry carrying construction sand, and collided with an articulated truck heading in the opposite direction. Desperately attempting to return to the correct lane, the bus driver also ran into the lorry he had been overtaking, which overturned. 32 of the bus passengers died, 31 on the spot and one on Sunday in Maputo Central Hospital.
At its weekly meeting on Tuesday, the Council of Ministers (Cabinet) announced two days of national mourning for the victims of the Maluana disaster, during which flags will be flown at half mast.
Government spokesperson and Deputy Justice Minister Filimao Suaze also announced that an independent commission of inquiry will investigate the causes of the accident, and propose measures to improve road safety. The composition and terms of reference of the Commission will be announced later this week.
Arnaldo Abel, a representative of Nhancale Transport, the company that owned the bus, has admitted that the driver (who is now in police custody) may have been to blame. Cited by the Portuguese news agency Lusa, Abel said “we accept that human error will have had a negative influence”.
Abel said the company will assist the survivors and the families of the victims, including with transporting the bodies of the victims to Beira. But on Monday, some of the injured, speaking from their hospital beds, said they had not yet received any assistance from the company.
The commission of inquiry will certainly look at how fast the bus was travelling and whether the driver should have been at the wheel at all. For road transport regulations already state that a driver may not be at the wheel for more than eight hours a day, and must take a break of at least half an hour after four hours of driving.
According to information already published, there was only one driver on the Nhancale Transport bus. The distance by road between Beira and Maputo is about 1,200 kilometres. It is impossible to cover that distance in eight hours, particularly as parts of the road are in poor condition.
INATRO is facing a further scandal, since the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption (GCCC) on Monday ordered the arrest of 16 of its staff for their involvement in a scheme to falsify biometric driving licences, and to sell driving licences to people who had never attended driving schools or taken driving tests.
People who wanted a driving licence without going to the trouble of learning how to drive could, according to the GCCC, simply pay 30,000 meticais (473 US dollars, at current exchange rates) to the network of corrupt staff.
The GCCC investigations arise from denunciations made in 2019 by the country’s main anti-corruption NGO, the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP).
The accused had all worked at INATTER, and made a smooth transition to INATRO, when the institution changed its name. Most of them were from the Maputo city INATTTER delegation. They included people who were supposed to draw up theoretical and practical driving tests, examiners, computer technicians, and secretarial staff.
