– Edited – The Eastern Cape Department of Transport has called on scholar transport operators not to carry out their plan of a total shutdown in the province today, 2 May as this action will be illegal, a statement said yesterday.
The Department also advised that payments to contractors will be made within this next week.
If the planned action continues today man scholars may not able to get to school and some schools my close.
“Anyone caught being involved in an illegal protest action and shutdown will face the wrath of the law,” a statement from the Department said yesterday evening.
The Eastern Cape Provincial Government and the EC Department of Transport stressed that any planned acts of a shutdown, denying people their right of movement at the time when many elderly and frail citizens are supposed to be getting their social grants will not only be an immoral act, but will also be an illegal action that will be acted against by the law enforcement.
The Department will pay scholar transport operators over the next two weeks after a backlog developed through boycotts by some transport operators and non-compliant invoices from operators being rejected by SARS automatically.
The department says it takes some responsibility for the delay in payments to some operators. Some transport operators boycotted the signing of contracts in January and February and then submitted invoices without necessary supporting documents that were rejected by SARS for being non-compliant.
The department started paying compliant invoices received from operators who contracted, but other transport operators expected to be paid without supporting documents since they had boycotted transport.
Owing to this, payments were on hold, making it difficult for willing transport operators to ferry scholars as they have no fuel left.
The EC Department of Transport has assured scholar transport operators and the public at large that “the challenge is not with unavailability of funds, but rather with technical challenges.”
The department also says while it takes a degree of responsibility for the delay, some of it is down to the boycott of the signing of contracts by some operators when they were called do to so back in January and in February. Another part is down to challenges relating to SARS among some operators. “To date, a sizeable percentage of legitimate invoices have already been settled, while outstanding and legitimate invoices will be paid during the cause of the month.”
The department said a shutdown today “will not only infringe on people’s right of movement, but will also negatively impact on scores taxi operators, the overwhelming majority of whom depend on the taxi rank, have private contracts with parents to ferry learners or have contracts with companies to ferry their worker. Dozens of taxi operators have no business with the government scholar transport programme. “
The department says the next run of payment amounting to R5.9m is scheduled for Friday this week with payment reflecting on operators on 8 May and the next payment after that one is scheduled for 15 May to settle the payments from January to date.
The Department has pledged to ensure the 15 May deadline is met. The department has also challenged operators to ensure they also play their part to assist the process, by ensuring invoices they submit are legitimate and that they have all the supporting documents.
