Bhisho wants MEC to ditch consortium

Calls for probe as concerns raised over finances of scholar transport operators

BHISHO MPLs want the consortium responsible for the multimillion rand scholar transport programme removed and never to be allowed to tender for the contract again.

They also want the company probed by forensic investigators on how they used state funds.

Politicians also raised concerns that the company had not submitted audited financial statements to the legislature to account for state funds.

In a transport portfolio committee report adopted by the legislature house sitting last week, MPLs lambasted the Eastern Cape Bus and Taxi Chamber’s (ECBTC) One Future Development 46, a consortium of taxi and bus operators, for regular fatal accidents which have claimed the lives of many pupils.

This year alone, the Daily Dispatch has reported on more than 15 school children who lost their lives in accidents involving scholar transport vehicles and buses.

MPLs alleged that preliminary investigations have shown that in many of those accidents unroadworthy vehicles were allegedly used to transport pupils.

ECBTC’s contract expires at the end of this month, and MPLs have ordered transport MEC Thandiswa Marawu to make sure that the company is nowhere to be seen when the new contract is awarded.

However, the MEC told the legislature last week that the law did not allow her to prevent the chamber or any other company from tendering for the next contract.

Once the new scholar transport contract is awarded later this year, MPLs wants the department to acquire powers which will allow it to terminate the contract if it finds that children are being transported in unroadworthy vehicles or driven by unlicensed drivers.

Delivering the portfolio committee’s report, ANC MPL and committee chair Busisiwe Makaula said the provincial politicians were “gravely concerned” by accidents involving scholar transport vehicles.

MPLs also accused the chamber of abusing the scholar transport budget by “paying its directors and staff obscenely exorbitant salaries and allowances that take away the money meant for transporting scholars to fund their lifestyle”.

Makaula’s committee recommended that a forensic audit be undertaken on the disbursement of funds by the chamber, its directors and staff.

“A multi-pronged law agency investigation into the chamber, as a business entity, must also be undertaken with a view to prosecuting guilty parties and recovering the funds from the assets of the directors and staff concerned,” Makaula said.

Marawu’s department was given 30 days after the report was adopted last week to institute the investigations and to submit a report on how it planned to introduce monitoring mechanisms for scholar transport.

Responding, Marawu admitted that the department was not doing enough to monitor the programme.

ECBTC’s Simlindile Hintsa could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Since July 2011, the company has ferried 54 000 pupils and earned R206-million from the government before their contract expired last December.

It was later renewed for six months in January at a cost of R300-million. —