Mongu Mayor Nyambe Matakala and Western Water and Sanitation Company acting managing director Leah Banda have perished in a fatal road accident in Mkushi, Central Province.
According to the official statement from Zambia Police, the accident which claimed Matakala, 37 and Banda, 42 happened this morning around 05:30, three kilometers east of Mkushi.
The statement said Banda was driving an unregistered Nissan Caravan from Nakonde heading to Kapiri Mposhi and was with Matakala when their car collided with a copper-laden Howo Sino Truck with a Tanzanian registration number T759 DEN coming from Kasumbalesa.
The driver of the Howo Sino Truck fled the accident scene.
“The accident happened when the driver of the (Howo Sinotruk) was improperly overtaking (an unidentified) vehicle and collided head on with the Nissan Caravan, killing the driver and her passenger who sustained fatal body injuries,” according to the statement.
“The two bodies have been deposited to Mkushi District hospital mortuary while the Nissan caravan is extensively damaged.”
Yesterday, Former Transport Minister Brian Mushimba said that he was saddened by the recent spike in road accidents across Zambia.
Mr Mushimba said almost daily, there is a loved one being lost on the punishing roads across the country.
“As someone who once was in charge of road safety in the country while I served as minister of transportation, I am at pains to make sense of these painful and unfortunate events,” Dr Mushimba said.
“I remember during my time, we recognized that we needed immediate interventions while we planned for medium and long term solutions (such as better roads, dual carriage highways between towns, public mass transit transportation systems, etc).”
Dr Mushimba said as part of the immediate interventions, he signed a raft of Statutory Instruments (SIs) totaling 13.
“I was subsequently nicknamed the “Minister of SIs” by the media at the time. I wore that nickname as a badge of honor,” he stated.
“We had researched data that those SIs were necessary to stem the trend on accidents and fatalities. We signed SI to move heavy cargo off roads onto the rail. We signed SI to ban high occupancy vehicles driving in the thick of the night on poorly lit or marked roads. We signed SI to install speed governors in high occupancy vehicles. We signed SI to streamline driver training and strict conditions for acquiring driver licenses. And many more.”
Dr Mushimba said in the first year, Zambia reduced accidents and fatalities by 13% adding that the trend of reducing accidents and fatalities continued while he served in the Ministry of transportation.
“If these SIs are still standing, can the listening government enforce them better please? If they are not standing anymore, can new ones be instituted to save lives on these roads please?”
“Can we get a plan and timelines shared on the transition to medium term and long term solutions (i.e. dual carriage highways, public mass transit systems)? We can wait on many other things for implementation by the new government but life is at stake here on these roads.”
Bwana former minister, new dark government is full of s@t@n1sts. Its sacrifice time. Taking back what they promised the dark world.
@1: Devil incarnate!!
That’s why you need police presence on our roads. We know how corrupt our police are but the loss of such useful personnel is heart breaking. The police are corrupt because we’re corrupt. Now people are able to drive on our roads without driving license, fitness, insurance. The government should find a replacement for the removed police otherwise we are going to continue losing our most important asset…. the human resource.
Please put back the roads block to avoid accidents though system is corrupt but this help reduce people without drivers Licnse on the roads
If all motorists refused to pay a bribe at road block, do you think the policeman will keep all of us there indefinitely? One main reason people pay bribes is because either the driver or the vehicle has something missing. We did it at Kafulafuta one time and made the policeman to run from the road block. It takes two to make a baby
Most of these accidents are taking place because of improper overtaking resulting in head on collisions. The problem with big trucks and big buses always want to overtake even when there is an oncoming vehicle because they always,think the other vehicle will just go off the road and let them pass due to their size . I’m talking from experience many times over having been bullied off the road.
The problem is not road blocks but drivers who have no care for lives lost. LT do a research and found out how much jailtime has been given to dangerous drivers? We need a landmark case that they set a precident that dont mess with lives. Some years back a foreign(romanian or polish ) truck driver killed 4 kids and there mother on the motorway, he is doing 25 to life in prison.
SHUT UP YOU TRIBALIST BRIAN YOU LEFT CHAOS TO THE INSTITUTIONS UNDER YOUR MINISTRY. YOU INTERFERRED WHO WOULD BE THE CEO
Where they boyfriend and girlfriend?
Yesterday was Wednesday right? Where they not supposed to be on duty?
This will be tough case. I am just mourning.
Wishing them well in heaven.
ROAD BLOCKS ACHIEVE ZERO EXCEPT TO ENRICH THE OFFICERS WHO MAN THEM
NO ONE SHOULD BLAME FORIEGN DRIVERS RUNNING AWAY AS THEY ARE PRONOUNCED GUILTY EVEN BEFORE THE INVESTIGATION IS STARTED
THIS IS A KNOWN FACT
AN UNKNOWN VEHICLE SHOULD TELL YOU ALL ??
IF THERE WAS A VEHICLE THEY WIOULD HAVE STOPPED
freema.sonry sacrificing..Can the church help us to pray against road accidents.
Road blocks do not stop or prevent accidents they just encourage corruption among ZP officers…move on from the outdated colonial mindset and propose modern innovative solutions like better roads which are separated to stop headon collisions and modern police patrol vehicles with speed cameras and computers,
David Kaunda – Stop that stupidity…how gullibile and docile can you be everything is prayers for you!!
Should our father chikwanda die then his blood will be on HHs hands. Remember that chikwanda comes from a royal family. When you kill royalty you will die shortly after wards.
Another hh sacrifice
I fail to understand WHY THEY WERE DRIVING UNREGISTERED VEHICLE?
Recent spike in road accidents across Zambia are not only sickening but unwarranted!
Sadly, this will be so until the roads are mended or expanded to suit human travel.
These roads are overused and never maintained. They are simply A DEATH TRAP …
every time I am on Ndola- Lusaka road, I am in a death passage until I reach my destination.
Preachers on intercity buses may bless the travellers, but as long as those wobbly roads are not done … it is faith without works!
So these two were travelling just the two of them to a work event …meanwhile at home they told them we are going in a group.
RIP
We are just not capable of governing ourselves as a country. We die from all sorts of preventable issues, from preventable diseases; corruption to traffic accidents.
It’s to blame roads but it the entire system from driving licence issuance; to car ownership; road worthiness; servicing; insurance; mindset; etc. Don’t focus on just one thing… focus on all the entire system and other dependent variables.
A lot of this is a reflection on the society as a whole. We need to do better as a nation.
#15 Kilimanjaro. They went to collect the vehicle from Nakonde. It’s complicated. Let’s wait for the official report.
If you can’t think outside the box then I would suggest you do it while you are inside it. When building roads, consider having hard shoulders as standard for main roads. People are scared to come off the road because it’s just as dangerous as the head-on collusion. Use technology such as CCTV, automatic number plate recognition systems to identify careless drivers and use traffic police to catch and fine them. Use revenue as an incentive to prevent death. If these careless drivers know that our roads are patrolled by overzealous police looking to cash in on careless driving, that death rate would reduce significantly. Think smarter instead of working harder.
I have never seen a traffic police car or motorcycle on any Zambian road for the past 15 years.
@ Deja Vu
Thanks
And the SCANDALS involving NISSAN dealer sending drivers to collect the imported vehicles helped me understand your advice to me. SADDENED