DUMISANE LUBISI & JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Witbank | Tuesday 1.00pm.
MPUMALANGA transport MEC Jackson Mthembu faces possible criminal charges after reportedly driving and crashing a government-issue Mercedes Benz without a valid drivers’ license.
Mthembu escaped with only minor injuries on Sunday morning when he apparently rolled the vehicle through two traffic signs and into a tree at 4:45am in Witbank.
The vehicle was seriously damaged but Mthembu escaped with only a few minor cuts to his tongue.
Police spokesman Captain Eddie Hall confirmed on Monday that police are already investigating reckless driving and negligence charges against Mthembu.
“Mthembu doesn’t have a drivers’ licence and faces additional criminal charges if we prove initial evidence that he was the vehicle’s driver,” said Hall.
Mthembu refused to comment on the issue on Monday but his spokesman, Tom Nkosi, said an official driver was behind the wheel while Mthembu was merely a passenger in the vehicle.
However, the alleged driver, Thomas Shongwe, is listed as an uninvolved witness in official police statements after officers at the scene reported that he only arrived later, driving a second vehicle.
Hall said that Mthembu had personally told officers filling out accident reports on the scene that he was the driver.
Nkosi meanwhile conceded that the wrecked Mercedes Benz wasn’t Mthembu’s official subsidised state vehicle.
Nor is the accident is not Mthembu’s first in a state vehicle.
He narrowly escaped death in September 1997 when his previous driver rolled his official government BMW when a tyre burst at high speed.
Mthembu is also still being sued by car rental company Avis after his driver allegedly rolled and wrote-off a rented Audi A4 while Mthembu served as the ANC’s chief whip in legislature in 1997. — African Eye News Service