The Democratic Alliance (DA) Member of Parliament, Marshall von Buchenroder, has called on the Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for the Department of Transport, Xolile Nqatha, to urgently articulate what steps he is taking to avert the crisis of scholar transport funding.
Von Buchenroder said that there is a significant chance that learners across the Eastern Cape will start the new academic year stranded, without any scholar transport.
According to Von Buchenroder, this is because the Department of Transport’s Scholar Transport Programme is out of money, and has been since November 2023.
“Learners cannot simply be abandoned on the side of the road. The DA warned the department when it tabled its budget in April last year that the funds it had allocated to the programme were woefully insufficient.
“During the adjustment budget, we again called on the Department and Provincial Treasury to make provision for the shortfall, and rejected the budget when no such provision was made,” he said.
He added that despite this, the provincial government pushed the adjustment budget through, sealing the fate of tens of thousands of children across the province, who will, in all likelihood, now be unable to get to school.
According to him, in response to parliamentary questions, Nqatha confirmed that the total budget was R695 million, but that R230 million of those funds had to be used to pay off old debt, leaving just R465 million for Scholar Transport for the financial year.
“Operating costs to transport 103 000 learners exceed R100 million a month, so even with the most reserved calculations, the programme is out of money.
“This is backed by taxi operators, who have confirmed that many scholar transport operators have not been paid since November last year.”
Von Buchenroder added that it is no surprise that the department and operators are in tight negotiations behind closed doors, and it is highly unlikely that a solution will be found unless operators agree to transport learners at their own cost until the new financial year, starting in April, when the new budget is released.
“To make matters worse, the department has still failed to release a report into allegations of Transport officials colluding with operators to loot the Scholar Transport budget. Funds are desperately needed to ensure our children can get to school and receive an education.
“The Department of Transport has shown it is incapable of managing the Scholar Transport Programme,” Von Buchenroder said. “The DA will call on Finance MEC, Mlungisi Mvoko, for urgent intervention to ensure that this programme receives the required funding.”
He said that they also call on Treasury to second individuals to oversee the management of any allocated funds.
Spokesperson for the Department of Transport, Unathi Binqose, said that their problems are known by them as the department, and government in general. He said that they do not know any learner that will struggle because there are no funds.
He said that the issue of payment of scholar transport operators is subject to the submission of invoices.
Invoices must come through, and they have sent some messages to all scholar transport service providers, urging those who have invoices that were not submitted to do so, so that they can process the issue of payments.
“Our payment is subject to the submission of invoices, and we can state that there are some invoices that are yet to be submitted; that is why we issued some messages reminding them to submit them.”
