N Cape pupils left stranded due to ‘non-payment’

A NUMBER of pupils were apparently left stranded without any transport to school for two days due to unresolved issues regarding the alleged non-payment of pupil transport operators by the Northern Cape Department of Education.

The department and the contracted operators are still at loggerheads regarding payment during the Covid-19 lockdown period and the situation is expected to escalate as more grades go back to school next month.

According to the operators, they have not been paid by the department since March, while the department has dismissed their claims of outstanding payments, arguing that they had not rendered any services since the lockdown.

Operators have pointed out that department employees stayed at home during the lockdown but received their full salaries.

Private transport operators are also facing uncertainty about their future as many parents have also refused to pay during the lockdown period when “no services were rendered”.

Operators have warned that they will have no other option but to increase their fare prices.

The Northern Cape School Transport Association (NCST), which is contracted by the Department of Education to provide transport to pupils, has accused the department of not engaging with it directly, and instead addressing it through the media.

Last week, the spokesperson for the Northern Cape Department of Education, Lehuma Ntuane, said that the contract with the operators was based on a month-to-month basis after their services were incorporated into the Department of Education from the Department of Safety, Transport and Liaison in December 2019. 

Ntuane refuted claims that they owed the operators for the time period that the schools were closed during the lockdown and indicated that they will not pay them.

He added that they had agreed with the operators to adopt a month-to-month contract until the tender could be advertised after the lockdown.

According to Ntuane, the contract that they entered into with the operators is based on the delivery of services.

The Department of Education also distanced itself from private transport operators and urged them to approach the Covid-19 relief fund for intervention.

A member of the association, Kenny Dugmore, expressed his disappointment on Tuesday after learning through the media that the department had apparently been engaging with them. 

He indicated that they did attend a training session before the reopening of schools on measures to prevent the spread of the virus.

He pointed out, however, that  the department had not yet allocated the promised sanitisers to all operators.

“Where do we get the diesel or petrol to travel when they refuse to pay us?”

He urged the department to engage with them at a round-table discussion so that all the issues could be placed on the table instead of giving the media “false statements”.

“If they failed to reach us all in time to deliver the sanitisers, how can they expect us to travel long distances to collect the sanitisers after we had to travel to attend the training sessions?” 

According to Dugmore, the department extended their contracts for three months on two occasions this year already, with the agreement to wait until the tender process had been concluded. The new contractors were supposed to start next month in July.   

“After Covid-19 started we had a meeting on Zoom with the department on April 30 to map the way forward. The tender was already advertised but the department decided to withdraw it and told us to continue with the contract until the end of Covid-19,” explained Dugmore.

Dugmore indicated that they had only received communication from the HOD of the department, Tshepo Pharasi, who he said promised to approach Treasury to see how they could meet each other “halfway”.

Ntuane said, in response, that the department was in the process of reviewing the contracts of those operators who did not transport pupils to school in the past two days.

According to him, they had only experienced challenges in the ZF Mcqawu District, where some operators did not deliver services.

Meanwhile, private transport operators said that they feared that their vehicles could be repossessed at any time.

Many of them said that they realised that parents were still comparing prices and had opted to transport their children to school themselves.

One operator said he had been transporting 20 pupils on a daily basis and that only two parents agreed to pay the price of R800.

“I gave up and advised the parents to seek alternative transport as I cannot survive on less than that.

“Instead, I have started a mini fruit and vegetable market to feed my family until I find a permanent solution. I have made peace with the fact that my vehicle will be repossessed soon by the bank,” he said.

Another operator said that he had been transporting three trips of pupils in a five-seater vehicle on a daily basis but in terms of the new regulations he could now only transport two pupils at a time.

“We are dead. There is no hope for intervention as I am not a registered operator,” she said.

Meanwhile, several parents admitted that they were still unsure as to whether schools would remain open until the end of the year. An unemployed mother said she had decided to transport her child herself after the operator wanted R800 a month. “We haven't even received the school schedule yet. I don't know if my child will attend school every day. The operator would not meet me halfway based on that either. So I decided to wait and see how the next three weeks will go before I commit to anything now,” said the parent.