By Staff Reporter
The Democratic Alliance in Mpumalanga has called for scholar transport to be moved from the provincial transport department to the education department.
This follows government-subsidised scholar transport being disrupted after operators stopped their services due to invoices not being paid and invalid contacts.
The provincial government failed to pay operators across the province for February and March.
DA provincial education spokesperson Annerie Weber said the party outrightly rejected the “ridiculous explanation” from the transport department that the payment delays were due to the “transition from the 2024/2025 financial year to the 2025/2026 financial year”.
“Every year the financial year ends, and another financial year starts – nothing about that causes two months of non-payment,” she said in a statement on Friday.
“This is a catastrophic and unacceptable administrative failure, by senior officials, who must be held to account. The DA demands a full forensic and financial investigation into these payments to find who is responsible so that they can undergo strong disciplinary action.”
Weber said that the way scholar transport was set up in Mpumalanga was also the issue as it fell under the public works and transport department. In some provinces it fell under the jurisdiction of the education department.
She said a long-term solution to this problem was moving it to the provincial education department.
“It is unacceptable that learners’ education is put at risk because of mismanagement and non-payment.”
Subsidised transport in Mpumalanga reportedly assists about 60,000 learners from grades R to 12 in rural and farming communities who lack public transport.
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