Last week Transport Minister, Fikile Mbalula on Saturday 20 July held a meeting with commuters, following a memorandum of demands handed to the Minister by bus commuters from Hammanskraal, Mabopane and Atteridgevile, a few weeks ago.
Today the minister has kept his promise and unveiled the first batch of 40 buses that were on the premises of Soulsville arena in atteridgeville. The Minister expects 220 buses to be rolled out within the following 14 days.
The minister has now made new plans to bring in small players to the table, to provide the state with roadworthy buses, stressing the disappointment by the North-West Transport Investments SOC Limited (NTI), the NTI is a state-owned enterprise wholly owned by the North-West provincial government, calling them “coffin buses”. The company has failed to service its buses and provide commuters with safe transport. The Minister found out 25 buses that were operating in atteridgeville were not road worthy.
kaThe NTI bus drivers expressed fear of losing their jobs with the new operating buses, but the minister urged the workers to join hands with the MEC and government to fight corruption, because of the maladministration within the NTI, that have led to them having coffin buses.
“The government has been spending billions on public transport and yet the service that is being rendered to our people is the one that takes them straight to the grave”, the Minister replied.
Stressing that commuters do not march to these companies, they march to the government department to help them. He promised to try his best to protect the jobs, with him cleaning out the maladministration going on in the NTI and dealing with corruption to preserve the jobs of NTI workers. That being the Ministers long term goal, but his immediate goal is serving the commuters with good, clean and safe transport.
The spokesperson for Attridgville commuters, Small, was very pleased with the turnaround time of the Minister: “showing residents today the buses here has proved that we can reply on our government and we are very sure that the next 14 days will see more buses coming in and that the process will run smoothly”.
