MBOMBELA – Mr Ken Robertson, MP and the party’s political head of Chief Albert Luthuli constituency, said last week that they wanted ministers to be held accountable when they disregarded the rules of the road.
“It is fine if they need to get out of a dangerous situation to sometimes ignore road signs or speed limits as they are allowed, but there needs to be limitations,” he said. “They must face some sort of punishment if they cannot prove why they needed to do it,” he said.
This comes after he obtained confirmation from the ministry of justice and correctional services that the SAPS have been requested to further investigate the accident in Mpumalanga in December in which minister of state security, Mr David Mahlobo, was involved in.
Mr Hermanus van Schalkwyk died in a head-on collision involving one of Mahlobo’s official security vehicles on the R33 between Carolina and Amsterdam on December 23.
Robertson welcomed the investigation.
“The family has submitted additional evidence of CCTV footage showing the convoy leaving Amsterdam shortly before 14:50. The accident occurred 30 kilometres away just after 15:00. Now work out how fast they had to be driving,” he said.
He said Mahlobo’s office was using the confidentiality of state security to avoid revealing on what official business the minister was at the time of the accident.
“What was his business there and why were they driving that fast?”
Robertson added that he had made a request to the independent police investigative directorate to investigate the actions of the VIP unit.
In the meantime they are drafting amendments to the law.
“We are trying to amend the Act. There has to be some sort of accountability,” he said.
Spokesman for the Department of State Security, Mr Brian Fikani Dube, told Lowvelder that the ministry had no comment on the investigation as the case was sub judice.
