Commuters want government to stop North West Star bus contract

Commuters in the city who use North West Star buses – a subsidiary of the embattled state-owned company North West Transport Investments – have called on the Gauteng government to terminate its contract with the entity after being stranded for weeks without buses.

Their issues with North West Transport Investments were raised with Transport MEC Kedibone Diale-Tlabela last week in the Gauteng legislature. A disgruntled service provider had confiscated keys for buses in protest against the entity, which allegedly owes him nearly R16 million.

Recently, the service provider, Kobus du Toit, told the Pretoria News he was struggling to maintain buses and settle rentals for vehicles due to the outstanding debts of 20 months. Representing commuters in Atteridgeville, Idah Ramano expressed concern that people were forced to use alternative transport to go to work despite having bought monthly bus tickets.

She said commuters were inconvenienced by the service provider having confiscated the bus keys because North West Transport Investments had not paid him. The North West Transport Investments buses were subsidised by the Gauteng provincial government as part of the contract with the entity.

It emerged during the meeting between commuters and Diale-Tlabela that North West Transport Investments did not have enough buses to transport commuters. Ramano said Gauteng should stop its contract with North West Transport Investments and allow it to go back to the North West province, where it originated.

Hammanskraal United Commuters Voice leader Caiphus Makoti said: “We spoke to the service provider and found North West Transport Investments still owes the service provider last year’s salary, and didn’t even pay him half.” He said many people were likely to lose their jobs should the contract with North West Transport Investments continue.

“Should the government keep this North West Transport Investments we will all stay at home and the statistics of unemployment will increase and crime will be uncontrollable because many people will be hungry and committing crime to survive,” he said.

Diale-Tlabela told the commuters the entity was in breach of its contract with the Gauteng province by failing to honour its part of the deal by providing 586 buses to transport people. She said it was servicing between 42% and 48% of the contract, meaning the number of buses were fewer than those in the contract.

“Even if the national government is giving us money it can’t be spent because the contract is not serviced fully.” Diale-Tlabela said the department was aware that North West Transport Investments was poorly run because of incapable, incompetent officials. She said her department was attending to the issues.

Makoti said poor and unreliable buses at North West Transport Investments dates back to 2014. “We’ve been struggling for far too long. We told the Gauteng Department of Transport we want a new bus contract.” Attempts to get comment from North West Transport Investments were fruitless.