Cape Town – Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa has conveyed his condolences to the family, friends and teammates of Orlando Pirates and Bafana captain Senzo Meyiwa, who was killed during an apparent robbery in Vosloorus on Sunday.
The Deputy President said this when responding to questions from the members of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) in Parliament on Tuesday.
“We would like to pass our condolences to the family of Meyiwa, the friends and the fans of the Orlando Pirates Football Club.
“Everybody in the country has been hurt by this unfortunate incident.
“This is a death that should not have happened and we are very sorry we have been robbed of a great talent…” he said.
The untimely death of Meyiwa, who played his last game when he helped Orlando Pirates to a 4-1 victory against Ajax Cape Town during a Telkom Knock-out clash on Saturday, has shocked the world and made international headlines.
Nigeria church tragedy
The Deputy President, meanwhile, has appealed to all South Africans, particularly families who lost their loved ones in the tragic Nigeria church collapse, to be patient and to allow the identification of bodies to be concluded.
He said the South African government continues to hold extensive engagements with the Nigerian government through SA’s High Commissioner to Nigeria on all developments coming out of Lagos.
“The death of people who died in Nigeria hurts all South Africans. It is not only families hurting, we all hurting. We are more traumatised as a nation and it also becomes difficult when the process takes longer.
“Our Department of International Relations is keeping itself well-informed of what is transpiring out of Nigeria.
“I urge all of us to exercise patience as painful as it is. I am then unable to say how long it will take. But South Africa is ready to facilitate the return of the victims of the Nigeria church collapse,” he said.
Eighty-four South Africans were killed when a multi-storey guesthouse attached to the Synagogue Church of All Nations, which is led by Nigerian preacher TB Joshua, collapsed in Lagos on September 12. One hundred and sixteen people died during the tragedy.
Last week, Minister in the Presidency for Performance, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Jeff Radebe, announced that the DNA samples gathered from those who died had arrived at a laboratory in Stellenbosch for analysis.
The laboratory was appointed by the Nigerian government.
The Deputy President told the NCOP that while the SA government had offered its willingness to assist where it can, it could not actively partake in investigations in Lagos unless it was invited.
While he could not say how long the process of concluding the identification of bodies and the repatriations would take, he said the engagements, also done by the Department of International Relations and Cooperation through Nigeria’s High Commissioner to South Africa, were focused on fast-tracking the entire process.
He said Nigeria had appointed a coroner on Friday, 24 October.
Service delivery protests
Deputy President Ramaphosa said government has done an assessment of all service delivery protests that happened this year with the aim of addressing delivery bottlenecks that have led to the protests.
He said the Corporative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) Department had also done an assessment of all local government departments and through the recently endorsed “Back to Basics” strategy, would address all delivery concerns and ensure that civil servants go back to offering and delivering basic services to South Africans. – SAnews.gov.za
