The North West Transport Investments’ (NTI) R168 million bus contracts linked to a politically connected businessman, Suliman Carrim, are under fresh scrutiny as the state-owned bus entity battles a deepening crisis that has seen workers go without salaries and thousands of commuters left stranded.
This follows the presidential proclamation authorising the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to probe multimillion-rand contracts at NTI and its subsidiaries, North West Star and Atteridgeville Bus Service. Their buses operate across at least four provinces: Mpumalanga, Gauteng, North West and Limpopo. The company went into voluntary business rescue in 2022.
For years, commuters have complained of increasingly unreliable buses that constantly break down and often leave them stranded.
Hammanskraal United Commuters Voice leader Caiphus Makoti said this week that the SIU investigation was long overdue, expressing hopes the probe will uncover what had gone wrong at the transport service.
Gauteng Department of Transport MEC Kedibone Diale-Tlabela told commuters three years ago that NTI was in breach of its contract with the Gauteng province because it failed to provide the 586 buses required for transport.
Diale-Tlabela’s spokesperson, Lesiba Mpya, did not respond to a request for comment this week.
The SIU probe will cover the procurement of fuel from Zentrafor Fuel, a vehicle rental agreement dated 28 July 2023, and a commuter bus subcontracting agreement dated 7 July 2023, including the payments made under them.
It will also investigate alleged maladministration in NTI’s handling of claims by Transnat Coachlines, Ziggy Investments and their joint venture, all linked to Carrim.
Both Transnat Coachlines and Ziggy Investments recently featured in evidence presented at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry, where it emerged that the two companies were in a joint venture.
The joint venture is allegedly also linked to the late taxi boss and alleged Big Five cartel member, Jothan “Mswazi” Msibi, who was named as an interested bidder for government-subsidised bus transport contracts.
WhatsApp chats before the commission showed proof of payment sent to Msibi, including a R700,000 transfer from Transnat Coach Lines to the South African National Taxi Council, which allegedly ended up in Msibi’s hands.
Another message attached to a proof of payment read: “I am waiting for R300,000.”
In August last year, hundreds of NTI employees protested at the Pretoria High Court, where they had taken former Business Rescue Practitioner (BRP) Thomas Samons to court.
The employees accused Samons of opening an illegal bank account, diverting funds and refusing to transfer money to NTI’s official accounting channels, while demanding payment of 11 months’ unpaid salaries.
It has also been alleged that Samons contracted a company linked to his son as the sole supplier of fuel for NTI buses.
This week, Samons flatly denied the allegations, adding that the proclamation was based on incorrect information.
He said he would share the correct information, contained in voluminous court documents, with investigators when approached.
Lerato Tsholo, uMkhonto weSizwe Party North West Member of the Provincial Legislature, said the collapse of NTI was “the direct result of years of systematic looting, elite enrichment, and executive oversight failures under the provincial administration”.
“We have repeatedly pressed the Department of Community Safety and Transport Management as well as the shareholder representatives for detailed breakdowns of irregular expenditure, fleet management costs, fuel provisioning agreements involving entities like FuelU, and the staggering disbursements to Transnat Coach Lines and Ziggy Investments,” she said.
Tsholo questioned Carrim’s receipt of government contracts amid his political position as the ANC’s regional treasurer for the Ngaka Modiri Molema region.
EFF secretary and MPL, Keobakile “Papiki” Babuile, said the SIU probe offers hope for long-overdue accountability to North West and to the more than 1,500 employees and their families.
He said the EFF played an active oversight role in the transport portfolio committee to scrutinise concerns raised regarding the affairs of the NTI and its subsidiaries.
The party also took issue with the fact that salaries and employment benefits had gone unpaid for more than a year, including non-existent financial statements, missing auction funds, non-compliant vehicles and dilapidated depots.
According to Babuile, over R600m previously injected into the entity was unaccounted for.
The ANC has been accused of facilitating tenders for Carrim after he previously paid staff salaries at Mphekwa House, its provincial headquarters, during a period of financial difficulty.
ANC provincial spokesperson Tumelo Maruping said the party does not enter into any procurement matters of municipalities and provincial departments or entities.
“And as it relates to Comrade Carrim having paid salaries for the ANC, I do not have proof from where I’m sitting. But of course, the ANC, because it’s a non-profit organisation, as you know, to a certain extent we rely on donors,” he said.
“So, if he happens to have been a donor at some point, we’ll accept that. But that cannot be attributed to us as the ANC that probably they returned favour for (Carrim) having paid something.”
Maruping said the ANC has not detected political interference in the running of NTI.
“In our view, this could have been as a result of some malfeasance and corrupt activities. And we want this SIU probe to get to the bottom of whatever that happened.”
Department spokesperson Oshebeng Koonyaditse didn’t respond directly to specific questions about fuel procurement allegations and government subsidies paid to NTI to date.
Instead, he shared a media statement in which the MEC Tsotso Tlhapi said she hoped the SIU probe will provide clarity on all allegations under scrutiny.
Tlhapi said the government will take corrective action where wrongdoing is found, including recovering any public funds that were unlawfully lost and ensuring those responsible are prosecuted.
Professor André Duvenhage, political analyst from the University of North West, said the situation at NTI reflects “systemic governance failures in state-owned entities, and the political involvement of senior politicians seems to be problematic”.
“However, one of the big problems is that the National Prosecution Authority is not acting the way it is supposed to act, and my take on the situation is that they need to act. They need to identify the political role players behind the scenes,” he said.
He said the SIU probe into the NTI bus services was a positive development to deal with patterns of systemic and endemic corruption, adding that North West province has a long history of political interference.
Professor William Gumede, of Wits University School of Governance, said the NTI saga showed that in recent years, provincial governments have largely become a source of patronage for local ANC structures.
“Provincial entities have very little accountability over provincial entities, because normally when national entities leave, you know, audits are general, public scrutiny and so on. Provincial and municipal entities are so far away from national scrutiny,” he said.
Political commentator Rebone Tau said the NTI case “proves that we have a serious problem when people seek leadership positions in the name of serving the public, yet allegedly use political power to advance personal interests and open doors for business”.
rapula.moatshe@nationalmg.co.za