Local Government and Public Works Minister Daniel Garwe has defended the government’s emergency response to the Seke Road crash that claimed 17 lives, despite growing criticism over delays in rescue efforts and the absence of key emergency equipment at the scene.
The tragic accident, which occurred last week, involved a haulage truck veering into the opposite lane and colliding with a minibus near the Chitungwiza River bridge.
Eyewitnesses reported that many victims were trapped under the wreckage for hours due to the absence of a rescue crane, raising concerns about Zimbabwe’s disaster preparedness and emergency infrastructure.
Addressing questions in the National Assembly, Minister Garwe insisted that the Civil Protection Department (CPD) “responded well and swiftly” to the incident, attributing delays to the time the crash was reported and the nature of the information provided.
“The issue of responsiveness in terms of time taken is subject to the time that the accident is reported. We cannot say the Ministry failed to respond timeously,” Garwe said.
He further suggested that the lack of immediate deployment of a crane may have been due to insufficient detail in the initial reports.
“Maybe people just reported that there was an accident along the Chitungwiza Road at a river bridge without giving the intimate details,” he added.
In the aftermath of the crash, opposition leaders and civil society raised sharp concerns over the state’s ability to respond to large-scale emergencies, pointing to this latest incident as evidence of systemic failure.
Nelson Chamisa, among others, highlighted the absence of basic rescue tools and the reliance on social media to summon private equipment.
Garwe, however, shifted part of the responsibility to the Chitungwiza Municipality, accusing local authorities of slow reaction times despite having been “equipped” with fire tenders.
“The Department of Civil Protection was there first before everybody else. All 92 local authorities have been capacitated with firefighting equipment,” Garwe noted. “We need to ask the city council responsible in Chitungwiza why its reaction was so slow.”
The minister’s remarks come amid wider debate on the state of public safety infrastructure and local government preparedness.
