Government to blame for lives lost on Moloto Road

The R753, or Moloto Road, the only link between Pretoria in Gauteng and the former KwaNdebele homeland in Mpumalanga, is both a blessing and a curse, hence it earned the moniker of the “Killer Road”.

The regional route connects Pretoria with Marble Hall, via KwaMhlanga and Siyabuswa. Just after it passes through Moloto, the Gauteng-Mpumalanga border, the entire route is known as the Moloto Road. Used by an estimated 60,000 commuters daily, the Moloto Road stretches over 160km and spans three provinces – Gauteng, Mpumalanga and Limpopo. But it has been a source of economic activity and misery for the people of this former homeland.

The narrow road has taken hundreds of lives, left hundreds more disabled, orphaned and widowed, as government turns a blind eye and consistently fails to keep its promise to upgrade the road. These promises date back to the late 1990s but nothing, other than the roundabouts at certain intersections, has been done. There was also a promise of a passenger railway line, with 13 stations, to alleviate pressure on the road, but that is yet materialise.

Ndebele folklore singer Nothembi Mkhwebane even released a song about the danger of the road back in the 1990s, pleading with government to deliver on its promise to build a railway line to save lives. I use the road as I am from KwaNdebele and every time I get into my car, I say a prayer because I have witnessed and, as a journalist, covered horrific accidents on the road over the years.

In November 2013, I had to interview grieving relatives gathered at the KwaMhlanga government mortuary to identify 29 mostly young people killed in a bus and truck collision on the notorious road. The accident was so horrific that one of the survivors told me the intestines of another passenger landed on her lap.

There had been many accidents like this before then: October 1993: 17 killed when two Putco buses collided; April 2006: 12 killed and scores injured when a Putco bus and a minibus taxi collided; December 2009: four dead and 62 injured when a Putco bus overturned; September 2011: family of four killed by a Putco bus; March 2012: 10 killed in two separate accidents; and April 2013: three killed and 22 injured in a pile-up.

In July 2015, the Limpopo and Mpumalanga provincial governments handed over a portion of the road to the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) to assume responsibility, but all they have done is erect the roundabouts.

In 2016, then president Jacob Zuma visited the area, with residents again pleading for his intervention to provide safe and efficient public transport system along the Moloto Corridor. There was excitement when Zuma announced the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) had signed a memorandum of understanding with China Communications Construction Company Limited to build the Moloto Rail Development Corridor. But that was the last people heard of it.

The people of Mpumalanga have now risen up, camping at the Union Buildings in Pretoria to demand answers about the upgrading of Moloto Road. The Moloto Road Corridor pipe dream is a crystal-clear example of how the ANC uses people during elections and forgets about them once they are back in power.

The hands of the party are dripping with the blood of the people of KwaNdebele.

Sipho Mabena pictured at The Citizen, 16 July 2019. Picture: Tracy Lee Stark

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