. Chisopa

By SYLVESTER MWALE –
Government is considering holding one funeral for the 25 people who died in a road traffic accident in Kapiri Mposhi on Saturday, Central Province Minister Davies Chisopa has said.
Meanwhile, 20 victims who included 11 females who died in the accident have been identified, while police officers were yesterday dispatched to search for a nine-year-old minor who was unaccounted for after the accident.
Mr Chisopa, however, said the decision to gather and mourn at one place would depend on whether the families of the victims would agree to the proposal.
Twenty-two people, including three children, died on the spot while two others died on their way to the hospital when a Scania Marcopolo bus collided with a Benz minibus in Manyumbi area on the Great North Road.
Mr Chisopa, who visited the bereaved families in Kabwe yesterday with his Permanent Secretary Daisy Ng’ambi, said the Government was devastated by the accident, especially that it came a few days after a similar fatality in the same place.
“President Edgar Lungu has already issued instructions to the provincial administration that Government will meet all the funeral expenses because this is a tragedy and, as a province, we are so devastated,” he said.
Mr Chisopa urged the Road Transport and Safety Agency to consider revoking the licence of the erring bus operators as one way of addressing road carnage.
Meanwhile, Kabwe General Hospital medical superintendent George Chipulu said six out of 11 people who were admitted had been discharged.
Dr Chipulu described the condition of the remaining five, who included the driver of the Marcopolo bus, as stable apart from one minor who was in the intensive care unit.