Premier Stan calls for survival orientation programmes

Premier Stan Mathabatha has called for survival orientation programmes to be offered to tourists on Portuguese Island in Mozambique to prevent drowning.
He was speaking at a joint funeral of two of the four Mozambique drowning victims at Groblersdal Rugby Stadium on Sunday. Mathabatha reportedly said more intervention from the part of the Mozambican government was needed, adding that if need be the South African Government must also assist where there is no capacity just in case. The issue of life guards and equipment to warn people of the dangers within the island must be there, he stressed.

Two young women from Groblersdal, Mmatholo Mogafe and Lesego Matsepe were reportedly swept away by the current during a recent swimming trip. The pair was part of a group of eight that went to Mozambique for a birthday celebration that ended in tragedy. Two other members of the group, David Kaise and Gregory Mfune from Mpumalanga and Free State respectively were reportedly buried during separate funerals at their respective homes on Saturday. The four bodies were repatriated to South Africa last Wednesday. The surviving four are Vincent Rammupudu, Lesedi Mmotong, Basetsana Mogafe and Lefentse Mampuru from Tafelkop and Groblersdal.

Information made available by the Office of the Premier informed that at the time of their untimely deaths Mogafe (24) was training as an Air Traffic Controller after graduating in Economics and Econometrics at the University of Pretoria in 2017 while Matsepe (19) was enrolled in a Biochemistry course and had previously studied Information Technology at Boston City College.
Mathabatha was quoted to have said: “It is a great loss to us as a province because the skills lost are needed when we talk of the fourth Industrial Revolution so if you lose them at this critical stage it becomes very painful for us as Government of South Africa.”
Despite Portuguese Island being regarded of the most beautiful tourism icons in the Southern Hemisphere, Mozambique Foreign Business Chamber Chairperson Philip Strydom reportedly confirmed that the island was notoriously dangerous without lifesavers on standby. It also has a recorded history of South Africans drowning in those waters with their bodies not being recovered, which dates back to as far as 1960s and most notably the young couple from Vhembe District were a husband went missing whilst on honeymoon in 2016, Strydom reportedly said.

Story: ENDY SENYATSI
>>endy@observer.co.za