No school buses will be running when pupils return to their classes on Monday unless the Gauteng education department comes up with R14-million allegedly owed to operators.
The department is not honouring its contractual agreement, South African Bus Operators’ Association (Saboa) executive manager Eric Cornelius claimed on Tuesday, accusing it of not paying 125 operators’ claims for April, May and June.
However, provincial education minister Angie Motshekga rejected the allegation. The bus operators clearly ”derive pleasure” from disrupting schooling in Gauteng, she said.
”The department will urgently try to meet with the bus operators to clear any misunderstanding before schools reopen,” Motshekga added.
A halt to bus operations would affect 60 000 pupils throughout Gauteng, from Vereeniging and Sedibeng up to Pretoria and Bronkhorstspruit, the East Rand and West Rand, including Katlehong and Diepsloot, said Cornelius.
Saboa’s lawyers have written to the department, giving it a deadline by which to pay claims.
”There won’t be services until operators are paid,” Cornelius said.
Saboa is also demanding a guarantee that services for July be paid by a certain date and has stipulated dates for monthly payments until the end of the year.
Under their contracts, operators have to be paid within 30 working days of submitting their claims.
Cornelius said the matter of non-payment will also be raised in Monday’s hearings of a formal dispute declared by Saboa last year.
The dispute concerns the rate of 25 cents a pupil a kilometre paid to operators; the department’s allegedly illegal termination of contracts last year; and the absence of a system identifying pupils who qualify for free transport.
Also up for discussion will be fluctuations in the price of diesel. Over and above their non-payment, operators have had to deal with an escalation in the price of diesel in the past three or four months, said Cornelius.
At the moment, operators make between R5 000 and a maximum of R10 000 a bus a month, when they need R35 000 to make their services viable, he said.
School-bus operators last halted their services on April 18 for a week, also over non-payment. On that occasion their claims for January, February and March had not been paid.
Saboa’s attempts to speak to Motshekga and her head of department on this occasion have met with no response, said Cornelius. There has also been no reaction from the department to written correspondence.
Last time around, the department had given ”various reasons” for the non-payment, said Cornelius. — Sapa