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Pamela Shumba Senior Reporter
FOUR people injured after a commuter omnibus attempting to avoid police spikes swerved and overturned are demanding compensation.
Ntandoyenkosi Nkomo, Nokuthula Mabhena, Esnath Phiri and Emmaculate Ndlovu – who all spent several days in hospital after the March 12 accident along Khami Road in Bulawayo – are demanding compensation for pain suffered, time spent in hospital and payment of their medical bills.

Their attorneys from the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) yesterday said they had given the police a 14-day ultimatum to take responsibility for their negligence.

The ZLHR’s senior projects lawyer, Lizwe Jamela, said if nothing was done before the April 17 deadline, legal action would be taken against the police officers involved, the officer commanding Bulawayo Senior Assistant Commissioner Steven Mutamba, the Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri and the Minister of Home Affairs Kembo Mohadi.

“What the police did was grossly negligent and the accident victims strongly feel that they must be compensated for damages suffered. I believe there’re other ways of enforcing traffic laws without endangering the lives of innocent commuters,” said Jamela. “We’ve since sent a letter to the officer commanding Bulawayo province copied to the Police Commissioner-General and the Home Affairs Minister. The letter requests them to take responsibility for their actions by compensating the victims. If we don’t receive a positive response in the next 14 days, then we’ll have to take the matter to the courts.”

Jamela said by Friday last week, the four victims were still in hospital, with some of them failing to pay for their treatment.
He said their lives and their families had been seriously affected by the injuries they sustained.

“They’ve also incurred huge medical bills. The victims sustained complicated injuries as some of them require skin grafting and operations that require a lot of money. On Friday, one of the victims was scheduled to go to theatre but she failed due to lack of money,” he said. “Some of the victims are bread winners in their families and it’s obvious that their income was affected thereby exposing their families to untold suffering.”

He said the damages would be quantified by the courts if the ZRP does not take responsibility.
“We can’t really come up with figures at the moment as the victims are still receiving treatment and their bills are rising everyday. They will differ from one victim to the other depending on the degree of injuries,” the lawyer explained.

“We’ll also look at the percentage of disability after treatment and other factors that may come up. I hope that we’ll get a positive response so that we don’t take this matter to the courts.”

Cde Mohadi and Snr Asst Comm Mutamba were unavailable for comment yesterday.