The Municipal Transport Fiasco (Forwarded)
I have been meaning to write about this but chose to repeat verbatim this mail, forwarded to me by my pal Patrick. It demonstrates quite vividly but concisely the endemic incompetence and corruption that pervades all aspects of the municipality here in Durban.
Can you believe this government of ours? They fire all the doctors in South Africa for striking, but the labour court says they cannot make 1500 bus drivers redundant because the bus company has gone broke.
So now the ratepayers will pay them for the 4 months they say it will take to get the service running again. The best is, in the beginning, Durban’s local government sold the bus service to a private company, Remnant Alton, as they said that under the new Constitution, it was unlawful for the state to own public transport.
They sold it for R70 million, but then within 1.5 years lent the owner R30 million, for operating costs. In effect, after the loans, he had only paid R40 million. He then declared bankruptcy and they bought the company back, which was by now absolutely useless, for R450 million, using ratepayers money.
The interesting thing is,that they buy it back, but according to themselves this is illegal. Now comes the good bit, With R 410 mil profit in his pocket, the local government hand over the running of the bus service back to him!!!!! It now has come to light that he should never have been able to buy it in the first place as he has been convicted of fraud. ” Which nobody knew about.”
Now the ratepayers of Durban have to walk around on filthy, crime ridden streets with names that nobody knows or can even pronounce while our city manager, Mike Sutcliffe, drives around with bodyguards and goes home, to his flat (valued at more than R1 million) at the point waterfront, with wonderful clean streets, which by the way has been declared a rates free zone till 2014.