A contractor who was hired by the eThekwini municipality to fix its buses, Ebhodwe Transport Services, has accused the metro of failing to pay R13m owed to them.
The company, which is a broad-based black empowerment company with 329 shareholders and was formed by the government and the municipality when they privatised Durban Transport in 2003, submitted their memorandum of demand on Monday at the Durban City Hall.
The company is demanding their outstanding payments on invoices, for work completed, amounting to over R13.9m.
We believe that the city fleet head and his managers failed to provide reliable buses for the commuters, and we therefore suspect that this department is mismanaged and corrupt.
— Ebhodwe Transport Services
The company claim the city’s failure to pay them could lead to them shutting down, leaving about 120 staff members unemployed.
“We demand immediate payment of invoices submitted to the city fleet for work completed on the five contracts.
“Our payments were blocked by senior municipality officials in December 2023. Work that should have been allocated to our coach contract has been suspended as of January 15 by city fleet senior managers Meshack Gwala and Albert Mbeje,” reads the memorandum.
The company alleged that Gwala and Mbeje have instructed staff to send all coach-related work to other companies. It said some of those companies do not have a body shop and are outsourcing their body-related work to another company, which meant the city violated the supply chain management policy.
The company demanded an urgent investigation into the matter and action to be taken against those responsible for misusing or mismanaging public funds. It said failing this, they would refer the matter to the city’s special investigating unit and the public protector’s office.
The company accused city managers and officials of incurring more expenditure by sending work out to other companies when Ebhodwe has a contract with them.
In September, the company said its contract was terminated and asked to vacate the Ntuzuma depot after they had requested a meeting with some senior officials in the city to discuss their outstanding payments and some of the defective contracts.
After the company refused to vacate the depot, the municipality applied for an eviction order in the Pietermaritzburg high court.
It alleged that one of the strategies by the city was to hold their payments so they could not pay staff, Sars and creditors.
The company told TimesLIVE Premium that due to the nonpayment it was unable to pay salaries to their workers for January and February.
“We believe that the city fleet head and his managers failed to provide reliable buses for the commuters, and we therefore suspect that this department is mismanaged and corrupt. We call for an internal investigation into all the affairs of the city fleet. We demand immediate payment on all our outstanding invoices. We demand a mediation be set up to discuss all our contracts,” said the company.
City spokesperson Gugu Sisilana said eThekwini municipality’s response to the allegations made by Ebhodwe Transport Services would be contained in court papers. “Therefore we will not discuss the case and merits surrounding the dispute with the media before it is delivered to the court,” she said.
The city is expected to file more papers before March 15.
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