MyPE

Community Business Directory, Event Listings, News and Views from Gqeberha, Nelson Mandela Bay

Are you also fed-up with IPTS failure and secrecy

By

IPTS Oversight
L-R: Cllr Dean Biddulph, Cllr Retief Odendaal, Manny De Freitas MP and Marshall von Buchenroder MPL
Dear MyPE

Today, the Democratic Alliance (DA) shadow transport minister, Manny De Freitas, shadow transport MEC, Marshall Von Buchenroder, and metro caucus leader, Retief Odendaal, carried out an oversight visit on the beleaguered metro Integrated Public Transport System (IPTS) today.

Cllr Odendaal called for the oversight visit due to the wholesale continued mismanagement of the project which has seen a spend in excess of R2 billion, with not a single bus on the road.

The decision to involve colleagues from all three tiers of government follows the latest shocking discovery that the project manager for IPTS, Mhleli Tshamase, is no longer a municipal official and has been appointed as a contractor since April last year with a remuneration package which far exceeds his salary as a metro employee.

In addition, the City Manager has yet to adequately respond to the various allegations of Tshamase’s alleged criminal record.

De Freitas said that the objective of the visit and the purpose of his involvement was to get all the facts on the ground, to establish what the challenges are, what the causes for the delays are and how the DA can assist in getting the project back on track.

The DA can no longer sit patiently waiting for answers that are not forthcoming in our attempts to help deliver a working mass transit solution to the residents of our metro. In the interim, the project remains largely shrouded in secrecy, mired in controversy and haemorrhaging with cost overruns.

We will leave no stone unturned in pressing ahead for answers and in getting this project back on the road.

A sound clip of shadow transport minister, Manny De Freitas, on the IPTS issue can be found here.

Regards

Retief Odendaal

The following two tabs change content below.

Port Elizabethan

This author is a 'catch-all' for occasional articles and letters written to MyPE. The Author of each article can be found in the signature at the bottom of each individual article.