How do we get to school?
Thousands of kids could be stranded due to transport tender mess
● Some of the winning bidders for a multibillion-rand Gauteng education department tender for scholar transport don’t own their own buses, and most appear to be based in other provinces.
Now the fate of thousands of Gauteng schoolchildren in low-income areas hangs in the balance after a high court judge in Johannesburg set the three-year contract aside last week. The decision means these children could be stuck without school transport.
The education department has appealed the decision by judge Edwin Molahlehi, who ordered that the contract, split between 145 companies, be set aside and the process begun afresh. Molahlehi found that the department violated the rules around the appointment of new transport companies after the contracts of the old ones expired more than a year ago.
While the department declined to provide a full list of the winning bidders, the Sunday Times obtained some of the names from its own sources.
Some have previously been linked to corrupt activities. One of them, Maela Distributors & Projects, was recently found to have unlawfully benefited from the 2020 personal protective equipment (PPE) tender the Gauteng department of health handed to Royal Bhaca, the company owned by the late Thandisizwe Diko, husband of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s former spokesperson Khusela Diko.
Following an investigation by the Special Investigating Unit, the Special Tribunal — which recovers public funds lost to corruption — found that Maela unlawfully earned almost R940,000 from the PPE tender, charging 17 times more than it should have for sanitiser, and ordered that it pay back the money.
Maela’s sole director, Moyahabo Maela, failed to respond to attempts by the Sunday Times to obtain her version. The company appears to have no official website, but a Facebook page created in March 2020 features posts describing it as a scholar transport company with operations in Gauteng and four other provinces.
In the Royal Bhaca scandal, which claimed the career of former Gauteng health MEC Bandile Masuku, the company was wrongly awarded a R125m contract to supply PPE. After this contract was cancelled a new one was awarded to Ledla Structural Development — an alleged proxy of Royal Bhaca — and several other companies, Maela among them, were used to funnel money out of Ledla, the tribunal found.
The Sunday Times has established that five of the companies that won contracts for scholar transport belong to one man, Faizel Bhayla, a businessman from KwaZulu-Natal.
Four of these — Impendle Services, Eagle Liner Transport, Sizanani Mazulu Transport and Nya Mende Events and Transport — were awarded stakes in the contract after submitting separate bids. Although not illegal, this practice is frowned upon by competition authorities and is forbidden by the supply chain policies of several state organs.
Approached for comment via text, Bhayla said he is abroad in Saudi Arabia and would return on May 4.
Disgruntled bidders, some of whom were awarded stakes in the new contract, say these examples support their belief that the department’s procurement process was flawed.
Yousef Paruk, owner of Toots Transport, one of eight service providers who took the department to court, said in court papers: “The department had not conducted mandatory site visits on the applicants’ premises, which called into question the manner in which the adjudication process was being conducted ... This is contrary to the terms of the bid document and an indication of possible corruption in the award process.”
Jabulani Khumalo, chair of the Gauteng Small Bus Operators Council (Gasboc), an umbrella group, told the Sunday Times: “What we’ve established is that 60% of these operators are from KwaZulu-Natal, and 20% are from Limpopo, Mpumalanga and North West and they don’t even have capacity.”
He said all the lucrative routes had been given to people from outside the province.
“And they’ve reduced the number of operators from more than 250 companies to 145 only.
“Meanwhile, the number of learners we transported last year has grown this year; it just does not make sense.
“It’s very disturbing because they are killing SMEs [small to medium enterprises] from Gauteng in preference to companies from other provinces,” Khumalo said.
The education department has denied there was any irregularity in the process. Spokesperson Steve Mabona said because of the appeal application, the department would not comment.
Both the National Treasury and the Gauteng department of finance said the tender award had not been published on their platforms, despite assertions by the education department that this had been done.
Khumalo said allowing non-Gauteng companies to bid had caused much unhappiness. “Some of these buses from KwaZuluNatal are being subsidised by the department of transport there, but are on Gauteng roads,” he said.
Some of his organisation’s members had been approached by successful bidders, asking them to be subcontractors. “Some of the companies have come to Gasboc to report this, while others are quite happy to do this,” he said.
“Whichever way you look at it, this makes us wonder whether the department did its adjudication properly, because part of this stipulated that site visits had to be done to confirm that bidders indeed did have buses, proper premises, as well as all the required documentation. Some of our members have already confirmed that they were appointed without any site visit,” Khumalo said.
The Sunday Times has heard an audio clip and seen an e-mail that appear to show successful bidders asking Gauteng-based companies to subcontract their buses so they could fulfil the contract.
Last week, schoolchildren in a number of districts, including the Vaal, were left stranded because there had been no clarity as to whether the old service providers, appointed in 2017, would still take them to school. There were allegations, said a source close to the department, that the new service providers were being intimidated by the old.
In his judgment on April 8, Molahlehi said that by the time the appointment was made, in March 2022, the 120-day extension period to conclude evaluation and adjudication had expired. “The respondents [department of education] were not authorised in awarding the tender after the expiry of the 120 days. The procedure adopted by the respondents was, accordingly, procedurally unfair. It is for this reason that I found that the tender was unlawfully awarded,” he said.
The department argued that it had twice notified all bidders through the tender portal that the tender was being extended, and that no bidders had lodged objections.
This latest controversy for the Gauteng education department follows its decision last year to ignore the advice of the national department of health and spend R400m on the unnecessary sanitising of schools.
In February, the Special Tribunal reviewed and set aside the sanitising contracts, which it said were riddled with irregularities.
Some of these buses from KwaZulu-Natal are being subsidised by the department of transport there, but are on Gauteng roads
Chair of the Gauteng Small Bus Operators Council (Gasboc)
This is contrary to the terms of the bid document and an indication of possible corruption in the award process
Yousef Paruk, owner of Toots Transport