After this, I also need to share this.
There was a horrific crash involving a truck (illegally overtaking on a solid white line) and a school bus in Pongola in KZN on Friday which resulted in 21 primary school kids being killed.
In any civilised country, this would be headline news for weeks and weeks. But that’s not us.
And then yesterday, there was this, just down the road from that same site. A truck crash (on the left), followed by another truck crash (you’ll see it):
Fortunately and amazingly, it seems that no-one was killed in this incident.
But suddenly, with this incredible video going viral, our transport minister – the self-styled “Mr Fix” ? – has noticed that two things have happened involving trucks and has worked out that there must surely be a better way of moving things from one place to another:
I think we can probably assume that “tiad” is “road”, and “ill” is “I’ll”. There’s a full stop needed in there, as well.
We might mock, but this is exactly the sort of direction that a new transport minister should be taking, getting South Africa’s underfunded, underutilised, much vandalised and crumbling rail network back to doing its job.
The problem here is this: Mbalula has been transport minister for 3½ years now. He’s overseen the demise and looting of the entirety of the SA rail system on his watch with hardly a peep, but now when he sees a chance to get some cheap fame and relevance, he suddenly comes up with a poorly-written, pre-morning coffee tweet with a promise (which he may or may not keep) of delivering a plan.
The chances of any follow through on that plan are non-existent, but by that time, the fuss will have died down and there will be no (personal) consequences for his continued inaction.
We shouldn’t be surprised.
He was useless as sports minister, and he was useless as police minister as well…
“I’ll take ‘Things that didn’t happen’ for 200 please, Alex.”
…so I’m not quite sure what we were expecting.
Anyway. Don’t be fooled by his 15 word statement on his amazing idea and faithful promise this morning.
Nothing – aside from more deaths because of trucks on the road – will happen. Again.
(Please also note that we will see images and footage of numerous truck crashes over the next week or so. It’s not a new thing. These were always happening, it’s just that the media will decide to take note of each and every one of them for a little while before normal service resumes and they keep happening, but no-one cares.)