Transport department taking steps to tackle challenges with scholar transport system

Transport department has forked out millions over the years

The Eastern Cape transport department has for many years been paying its scholar transport operators millions of rand using largely a manual format.

This, according to the department, has contributed to challenges facing the programme with a budget of about R650m a year.

A whistle-blower, who complained to the Public Service Commission earlier this year, accused the department of running the programme like a public entity within the department, yet it had never been established as such.

The programme’s challenges, since the department took over the function of transporting deserving pupils from the education department in July 2011, has been a subject of hostility, with contracted operators claiming they were not being paid on time.

This year, the scholar transport programme was given a budget to transport 103,000 pupils.

But it appeared there were 125,000 pupils in the system, meaning 22,000 were not budgeted for.

The whistle-blower claimed the department had irregularly awarded scholar transport contracts to various service providers during the 2019/2020 financial year, resulting in the overpayment of R300m.

“There are circumstances where some service providers claim they have buses to transport learners but do not have the buses and have not transported any learners,” the whistle-blower claimed.

Newly appointed transport MEC Xolile Nqatha has written to department head Mzi Mafani, asking him to provide a progress report on disciplinary processes facing senior management in the scholar transport programme.

Nqatha also raised his dissatisfaction about the department’s poor audit outcomes.

“It is of great concern that the department has been qualified [audit opinion] for four consecutive years.

“What actions [or] steps have you as the accounting officer taken to address the audit outcomes, including governance issues in the scholar transport programme?

“Can you provide actions you have taken, if any, for all officials who may have caused irregular expenditure in the last two financial years in the department at large?”

In a previous statement to the Dispatch, the PSC indicated that its investigations in the department were likely to be concluded by the end of April 2023.

Department spokesperson Unathi Binqose said progress was being made in ironing out challenges facing the scholar transport system.

“It is a fair call by the MEC, and he has used various platforms within the department to drive home the message of the need for a clean audit within the department.

“It is a call that has been embraced by everyone, from the head of department down to the lowest-ranked official in the department,” Binqose said.

Binqose said the threshold for pupils to qualify for scholar transport was 5km or more to walk to school.

“This means it’s a combined total of 10km or more that is needed for a pupil to be transported. However, there are provisions that are made if pupils do not meet the threshold yet they travel on dangerous areas like forests,” he said.

Binqose said their officials must do a verification on kilometres before a contract can be awarded.

“The kilometre issue was flagged by the Auditor-general,” said Binqose.

“Since then we have strengthened our hand on that to double check on kilometres.”

In one school in the Amathole East district, the department’s spreadsheet reflects a 34km round trip for three pupils when in fact the actual distance is 9.4km.

In another school in Buffalo City Metro, the spreadsheet reflects a 60km round trip to transport just one pupil.

Binqose said the department was embracing technology to improve its services.

“We have undertaken to ensure that we move away from manual payment processes, and the task of registering the operators on the Logis System [the government’s online system to pay suppliers] is more than 80% complete.

“The Logis is expected to kick in by the beginning of the next financial year,” he said.

In a reply to the Dispatch, the PSC in the province confirmed it had issued an investigation report in November 2019 regarding the scholar transport.

However, “it did not cover the issue of procurement irregularities”.

“The PSC did receive a complaint, which was also reported to the provincial treasury.

“Upon following up on the matter, it was discovered that the provincial treasury had commenced with the investigations.

“The PSC therefore decided not to run a parallel investigation, but instead to wait for the provincial treasury to finalise its investigation, which we believed will be shared with the PSC for a way forward,” PSC provincial director Loyiso Mgengo said.

Provincial treasury spokesperson Pumelele Godongwana confirmed they were investigating irregularities in the scholar transport programme.

“I can confirm that provincial treasury has been conducting a forensic audit at the department of transport since July this year, focusing on the scholar transport environment.

“The investigation is still ongoing,” Godongwana said.

Binqose said the manual payment of operators had caused a lot of challenges.

“As a remedial measure, the department is now going the ICT route.

“It is developing a learner transport system which will assist in monitoring the scholar transport service and will be in operation at the beginning of the next financial year.”