THE Integrated Public Transport Services (IPTS) in the Nelson Mandela Bay metro came to a halt last week after bus drivers downed their tools.
This was due to a two-week delay in wages to some drivers, resulting in a disruption along the Cleary Park route (route 1A) last week.
According to the Nelson Mandela Bay municipal spokesperson, Kupido Baron, the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality (NMBM) signed a Vehicle Operating Agreement (VOCA) with Spectrum Alert who is responsible for the management of its payroll and other enterprise resource management issues.
“The agreement clearly states that the company must ensure that the buses are maintained and operational,” Baron said.
CEO of Spectrum Alert, Trevor Harper, said that the IPTS drivers have since received their wages and are back on the road.
Harper added, “There are various reasons why drivers had not received their wages, one being of all records the previous CEO deleted. However, we are in the process of rectifying this with weekly meetings with the IPTS management to iron out these problems.”
Currently, only 16 out of 25 IPTS buses are operational in the metro. This is due to mechanical issues, Harper said, and only four buses will be repaired this week.
The only functional route is the Cleary Park to the Central Business District and the reverse thereof.
Feeder routes from Cleary Park to Booysens Park, Bloemendal and Kleinskool and the reverse thereof, feed into the operations of the main route. The current fare is R8 for the feeder (local) route and R10 for the trunk route.
However, according to a statement by the DA NMB caucus leader, Athol Trollip, there is an alleged backlog of R20 million in outstanding invoices since April 2019.
Trollip said that this was due to “strategic weekly underpayments from the municipality”.
Trollip revealed after a recent inspection that allegedly, all payments of invoices were stopped because of alleged non-compliance issues.
He said that this was despite these compliance issues having existed for some time under the previous CEO and these never having been an issue affecting payments previously.
“Any payments thus made while these compliance issues existed must be declared as irregular expenditure by the Municipality.
“These alleged non-compliance issues have apparently been resolved, yet payment was still withheld and workers were allegedly threatened by the MMC and IPTS manager that they would not be paid wages.
“Also, the vehicle conditions are deteriorating and the outstanding monies owed, making it impossible to effectively meet the maintenance obligations,” Trollip said.
The PE Express posted a poll on Facebook last week, asking residents if they are making use of the IPTS buses or other transport.
Out of more than a 100 votes, residents in the metro choose to use other means of transport, while only a few residents use the IPTS bus services.
Baron said that at least 16 buses were required to ensure that the Cleary Park route functioned optimally.
There is also a process in place for the purchasing of buses for Phase 1B (KwaNobuhle to Uitenhage CBD).
