Particular mention must be made of the following persons and officials who made
accommodation and other facilities available to your Commission for its meetings away from
Pretoria: The Director of Building Services, Natal Provincial Administration for Durban. The
City Librarian, City of Johannesburg for Johannesburg. The Regional Director, Western Cape,
Department of Posts and Telegraphs, Cape Town for Cape Town. The Secretary, Local
Transportation Board, Port Elizabeth for Port Elizabeth. The Town Clerk, Municipality of
Grahamstown for Grahamstown. The Town Clerk, Municipality of East London for East London.
The Provincial Secretary, Bloemfontein for Bloemfontein. The local representatives of the
Department of Public Works at Port Elizabeth, East London and Bloemfontein for assistance in
procuring the accommodation indicated above.
Your Commission desires to express to Mr. J.A. Coetzee, Under Secretary and Miss
A.M.M. van der Merwe, Senior Typist of the Department of Health, its appreciation of the highly
efficient manner in which the secretarial and typing duties of your Commission were executed by
them. Your Commission particularly wishes to record its appreciation that they were willing to
continue in office, Mr. Coetzee after his superannuation as from the 1st September, 1970, and
Miss Van der Merwe (as Mrs. Erasmus) after her marriage on the 11th April, 1970.
It is with deep regret that mention must be made of the untimely death of one of your
Commissioners and our colleague, Professor H.L. Swanopoel, on the 26th January, 1972. Your
Commissioners were fortunate to have him with them and to benefit by his valuable assistance
and contribution to the deliberations of your Commissioners. He associated himself in general
with the approach of your Commissioners towards the subject of investigation.
In view of the advanced stage of your Commission's deliberations at the date of his
death it was not considered expedient to ask you, Mr. President, to replace him.
With this introduction we, the undersigned Commissioners appointed by you to enquire
into and submit recommendations and report on the matters mentioned in the Terms of Reference
as reflected hereinafter, have carried out your directive to the best of our ability and
respectfully wish to present to you in the chapters which follow our unanimous Report.
Unless there are any further investigations you may desire us to carry out, we regard
our task as having been completed, and trust that you will find our Report to be of value.
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