The Eastern Cape Department of Transport has availed a sum
of R73 million to service the debt owed to scholar transport operators in
the province in the past four weeks. A total of R33 million of this amount
has already been paid out to operators. The remaining R40 million has
already been processed and the money will reflect in operators’ bank accounts by
February 22 for the first batch and the final batch would be paid by February
25.
Transport MEC, Weziwe Tikana-Gxotiwe, said that the money came
about as a result of re-prioritising and diverting some of the department’s
programmes as well as cutting down on events and travelling. “All that money
has been channelled towards what is owed to scholar transport operators. The
aim is to ensure that learners are transported and able to get to and from
school on time. We have always been open with operators on our state of
finances every time we have engagement with them,” she said.
Even the R40 million that they have made available to
them was communicated. She added that they have some serious challenges but
these are certainly not insurmountable.
The bulk SMSs to operators were sent out just before 14:00 on
February 18, 2022, before reports of a possible strike on Monday circulated on
various social media platforms.
“The department has committed to pay every operator for a
service rendered, but it has also warned that some claims would have to be
subjected to verification, including the many claims submitted for December
2021, a time when learners were no longer attending schools. The Department of
Transport has nearly doubled the number of beneficiaries from 54 thousand
learners when it took over the service in 2014. Nearly 70% of deserving
learners are benefiting from Scholar Transport.”
