Probe into Bay's new bus system payments

[MickeyD]

Year number 5 and our roads in PE are still stuffed up. Not even the taxis use all the dedicated lanes!!!

THE Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality is probing lucrative payments made to major engineering firms involved in setting up the city’s stalled integrated public transport system (IPTS), including companies whose senior consultants previously headed the metro’s public transport section.

The probe comes amid R10-million in outstanding payments from the municipality to private engineering firms for work on the IPTS, which has had more than R1-billion ploughed into it since it was first mooted by former mayor Nondumiso Maphazi in 2007.

Municipal roads, stormwater and transportation director Tony Arthur said the probe was “not an audit or investigation, but a financial reconciliation of payments made [to firms for work on the IPTS] and the procedures which were followed”.

The IPTS – aimed at revolutionising the Bay’s public transport sector with safe, state-of-the-art buses, dedicated bus lanes and a buy-in from taxi organisations – was meant to have been launched in August 2010, but infighting between the taxi bodies involved, and a reluctance by the municipality to intervene, stalled it.

Cape Town and Johannesburg have launched their versions of the IPTS, the MyCiTi and Rea Vaya services respectively.

“What comes out of that [financial reconciliation] may well facilitate [further investigation]. That may come at a later stage. We can’t process any further payments until this reconciliation is done,” Arthur said.

His predecessor, Ben Govoni, has been contracted by the municipality to head the probe, along with the metro’s budget and treasury department. Govoni said: “I have been contracted [by the municipality] to look into the IPTS.”

He declined to answer further questions, saying the probe was still in its infancy.

According to current and former high-ranking municipal transport officials familiar with the financials, the three firms which have shared the bulk of the tenders – SSI, BKS and its empowerment arm, Khuthele – have benefited to the tune of “about R150-million in consultation fees”.

The R150-million stems from the standard 15% “consultation fee” built into the firms’ tenders.

The man appointed late last year to head the municipality’s IPTS task team, the Bay’s 2010 Fifa World Cup executive director, Errol Heynes, has also requested an investigation of the various failures of the IPTS, according to officials.

Heynes had also re-issued letters of appointment to the various public transport consultants “with very clear directives and time- frames attached”, they said.

Two former senior IPTS officials, Greg Pryce-Lewis and his successor, Keith Mitchell, left their municipal positions for senior consulting positions with SSI and Khuthele respectively.

Pryce-Lewis, who was part of the team that went with Maphazi to the Colombian capital, Bogota, to investigate its smooth-running public transport system, was the assistant manager responsible for transportation when he quit in 2008.

Mitchell was acting public transport head when he left for Khuthele in 2010.

Both said their moves from the public to private sector had been “personal and career-orientated”.

“As you are aware, tenders are awarded by the municipal procurement committee and not by individual officials,” Pryce-Lewis said.

Their former boss, Ali Said, who left his position as executive director of infrastructure and engineering in June last year, dismissed reports that he was working for BKS in Johannesburg. Said, in fact, joined engineering firm SFC.

“There is nothing wrong with leaving the municipality. [We are all] engineers. The tenders [given out] went through the normal tendering processes. There was nothing unusual,” he said.

He had left his position “because I couldn’t stand the political interference”.

http://www.peherald.com/news/article/4389

 

[Shibal]

I was on holiday there this summer, and ended up in the area near the new stadium, and what a disgusting mess of a slum that whole area is, and the bus lane in Main Road is absolutely stupid. The town planner responsible for that should be strung up by the balls.

The condition of the roads in PE has seriously degraded since I was there about two years back - you need a 4 X 4 to travel along William Moffet, and that electrical switchyard that exploded is still not rebuilt.

 

[MickeyD]

I was on holiday there this summer, and ended up in the area near the new stadium, and what a disgusting mess of a slum that whole area is, and the bus lane in Main Road is absolutely stupid. The town planner responsible for that should be strung up by the balls.

I work in the Stadium vicinity... Most small businesses in Main Street have suffered enormous losses due to the mess up. There is no place for delivery vans to park to deliver stock and there is absolutely no customer parking. The area from Albany Road to Kempston Road is the absolute pits. Kempston, Harrower and Stanford Roads are screwed.

IMO the best solution would be to dig the whole lot up and revert to the old multiple lane system.

 

[MickZA]

I spotted a strange sight on Cape Road by Makro last week. A brand new bus in what seemed to be Algoa Bus livery heading into town, the strange thing was that it was so wide it almost took up the entire inside lane from curb to white line and it had two automatic doors in the middle of the right hand side - USA style, couldn't see if was LH drive.

The Cape Road traffic lanes from the western suburbs thru William Moffet are pretty wide but I don't know how this bus would fare in the Greenacres / Five Ways section let alone the nightmare that is Northend Main Street.

 

[MickeyD]

I spotted a strange sight on Cape Road by Makro last week. A brand new bus in what seemed to be Algoa Bus livery heading into town, the strange thing was that it was so wide it almost took up almost the entire inside lane from curb to white line and it had two automatic doors in the middle of the right hand side - USA style, couldn't see if was LH drive.

The Cape Road traffic lanes from the western suburbs thru William Moffet are pretty wide but I don't know how this bus would fare in the Greenacres / Five Ways section let alone the nightmare that is Northend Main Street.

Those are the brand new buses that were meant to be used for the 2010 SWC. Amongst other problems the bus lanes were too narrow are places so the buses could not use those lanes as they could not make the turns/corners. The other issue is the doors. If the BRT was working then they could use the buses and the passengers have to board/disembark onto the middle island of the road (and not onto the left hand pavement).

More white elephants...

 

[MickZA]

More white elephants...

You're not kidding, the driver kept weaving into my lane (don't think he was happy with this monster) and I hung back until we were stopped by a red at the MacDonalds robot (I almost said MickeyDs there ) .... then I pulled up alongside and hit the gas on green.