Durban - Ethekwini manager, S’bu Sithole, says the municipality plans to meet Tansnat Africa on Tuesday today to “determine what interventions need to be made” to aid the operators of the city’s ailing bus service.
The service’s important northern routes are not operating after about 300 drivers went on strike over unpaid bonuses.
Thousands of commuters and Christmas shoppers were stranded yesterday and at the weekend, because about 200 municipal buses were parked in the central depot in Johannes Nkosi (Alice) Street as well as in Ntuzuma.
The affected areas are Sydenham, Newlands East/West, KwaMashu and Inanda.
A concerned bus commuter, Jabulani Mnisi of Ntzuma E, on Monday said the strike was a great inconvenience and could not have come at a worse time for township residents .
“We are disheartened by a ‘no show’ of buses. We feel betrayed and uncared for by eThekwini officials. There has been no explanation given to us.
“We are now subjected to taxis, which get overloaded and become unsafe. The timing has been really bad. When everyone is rushing to buy for Christmas, this happens,” said a furious Mnisi.
Last Tuesday, the strike affected the Durban south routes of Isipingo, Lamontville and Woodlands.
But the issues of drivers on those routes were resolved and bonuses were paid out.
Tansnet Africa has a month-to-month contract with the city to operate its Durban Transport bus service.
Sithole said on Monday that as far as he was aware, some bus drivers had been paid their December salaries and bonuses while others had not.
“From our side this is not (just) an issue between the drivers and their employers, Tansnat.
“Any action that disrupts public transport is a concern to the city as the city owns the buses. As a city we must provide services to the public so we need to first meet with Tansnat and determine what interventions need to be taken,” he said.
Sithole said that while he did not know what was required to get the bus service up and running, he was not ruling out a financial bailout to the beleaguered bus operator.
“I would, however, be circumspect to use the term bailout because it implies we do this willy nilly. There are a lot of considerations that we need to take into account like, for example, that the price of fuel is at a low,” he said.
Sithole said the bus crisis needed the intervention of the provincial government as well, as they paid subsidies to Tansnat.
The strike is likely to have a two-pronged effect on Tansnat’s finances.
Apart from lost revenue from fares, the company’s inability to service routes was expected to attract millions of rand in penalties.
Tansnat’s operations manager, John Wilkinson, said: “Our contract states that penalties are imposed on us based on a kilometre not covered.
“If you do not operate, you do not get paid, therefore harsh penalties are imposed, which could amount to 140 percent for non-compliance.”
Earlier, he described the penalties imposed as “draconian”, and admitted the company was experiencing cash flow problems.
In an interview with the Daily News on Sunday, he said the company’s contract with the municipality was “complex” and was making it difficult for the business to be sustainable.
A South African Transport and Allied Union shop steward, who spoke on condition of anonymity yesterday, said the drivers were at loggerheads with the bus company after bonus payments were not reflected in their bank accounts by last Friday morning as promised.
He said that during their meeting last week with Sithole, and the eThekwini Transport Authority’s (ETA) deputy head of public transport operations, Mlungisi Wosiyana, it was revealed that Tansnat was facing considerable financial difficulties.
“The company is in a financial crises and it has become difficult to get the owner to respond directly to this crisis,” the shop steward said.
“But the city manager showed sympathy and promised to help us resolve this matter. If it is not resolved soon it can only worsen; other drivers from southern depots want to join us because only bonuses were paid, not their salaries. This could bring the entire operation to a standstill.”
Wosiyana said Tansnat could be penalised up to R2m a month based on the number of days on which bus operations have been disrupted. He also said it was the company’s obligation to pay its workers.
“They (Tansnat) do not only lose out on revenues/income but ETA penalises them for each bus missing its timetable. The penalties could be severe when buses are laid off for a number of days,” he said.
“The kind of subsidy offered to them by ETA is calculated on the number of people transported.”
Wosiyana said Tansnat had told the ETA about its financial crisis during a meeting in October.
Wilkinson confirmed that about 200 buses were affected, but said the strike was limited to the northern routes. “It is difficult to say exactly how much we have lost in revenues because we are operating at a reduced service,” he said.
“But what I know is that the company loses a significant amount of money in penalties.”
Wilkinson said the penalties his company had to pay to ETA were “draconian”.
He admitted that there was a cash flow problem but he was not in a position to discuss that because he had not seen the latest company financial records. Wilkinson said only Tansnat’s owner, Mandla Gcaba, could explain this.
“He advised me (bonus) monies have been transferred but he did not give specifics,” said Wilkinson, adding that he hoped things would return to normal by this afternoon.
Gcaba could not be reached for comment.
This is not the first time Tansnat Africa has fallen into financial difficulty.
Earlier this year the city was forced to give it a R8.1 million bailout to pay staff.
The city agreed this year to take over the bus service and run it as an entity similar to uShaka Marine World and Moses Mabhida stadium
.
Daily News