Interns feeling betrayed by Metrobus

Heartbreak for 75 as project is frozen

A 26-year-old graduate from the University of Johannesburg is among 75 interns who have accused Johannesburg Metrobus of betraying them.

The youngsters allege that they were promised jobs as bus operations coordinators at Metrobus from March 1 but claim that the company has since reneged on this.

“At first we were told that there would be 300 posts, but then they lowered it to 76 posts. Even the salary we were promised was decreased.

“We were originally told that we would be paid between R12 000 and R15 000. This also went down to R6 000,” she said.

The young woman, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals, said the apprentices had been denied a copy of their contracts by human resources.

“We are heartbroken. Some of us have big responsibilities and we were counting on these jobs,” she said.

Another apprentice said: “It’s frustrating. I had plans. I had hope. I have a child and I’m the only one supporting him.”

According to the interns, the programme was meant to train unemployed youth to become bus operations coordinators.

However, they said during their work induction on March 12, the acting general manager, John Gamede, arrived to tell them the programme had been put on hold.

This was confirmed by Metrobus spokesman Goodwill Shivuri, who said a need was identified to strengthen the supervisory capacity of the company instead.