Dramatis personae of Matsha tragedy
Sharon Mathala | Friday November 20, 2015 16:11
S & CD office
The Social and Community Development (S&CD) office is responsible for the Remote Areas Dwellers Programme. The Kweneng District Council’s S&CD office is therefore responsible for assisting remote dwellers from Matsha College with transport to their respective settlements. It appears authorities remotely sent a truck with a driver and his assistant to Matsha College without due care.
Driver
The driver and his assistant were both injured. Police say the load of the truck is the responsibility of the driver. Investigations show that the driver and his assistant did not have a list of the passengers. Police on Monday said the driver could face charges, should it be found that his vehicle was overloaded. “We are yet to determine whether the truck could accommodate over 126 people together with luggage,” Botswana Police Service, Assistant Commissioner Engemadzo Sechele said.
Matsha Head
The Matsha College headmaster, Phodiso Phori, is a troubled man. The Mmegi team met him on Monday evening, where he was working late through meetings on the vandalised school administration offices.
The school staffroom resembled a war zone with shattered windows, plain-clothes police officers and tired looking teachers walking through the corridors.
The headmaster directed our questions to Education Director Onalenna Senwedi, who was based in the headmaster’s office that appeared like a general’s war room. Phori was however not coping like a war general.
He appeared troubled and stressed. After getting permission from education authorities, he fielded Mmegi questions with Senwedi. Phori said that his school never transported students by bus.
He, instead, accused the Kweneng District Council, which he says holds the responsibility of transporting students.
Students
At the end of their final examinations all the students may have thought of was home, home and home. The two trucks and one bus were parked at their usual pick-up spot and it was time to go home. The students identified the Kweneng truck with its yellow band on the front doors and loaded it with their bags. School authorities say there were 157 students from Kweneng.
Most of them joined their friends and decided to use the truck because it must have been fun travelling as a group without any authorities. Most of them were aged 18 years and deemed adults. However, it may have been too much to expect them to refuse to use the truck as this was the norm.
Parents
Most of the parents are poor rural dwellers and do not have many options regarding the mode of transport for their children. Certainly government did not expect these poor parents to complain about the trucking of their children.
Politicians
All the councillors and even members of parliament from these areas know about the RADP and that government mostly uses trucks to ferry students. Politicians and senior government officials have officiated at events where student groups that provide entertainment, arrive in trucks.