The North West Legislature Portfolio Committee on Community Safety and Transport Management said it has adopted several resolutions with the aim of intervening in a persisting scholar transport payment crisis in the province.
Speaking on YouFM Newshour, the committee’s Chairperson Freddy Sonakile said that they noted with concern the non-payment of scholar transport service providers, which has resulted in some providers suspending they’re services since Monday.
“This disruption directly infringes on learners’ constitutional right to education.
The Department of Community Safety and Transport Management has confirmed that it engaged in a full-day, tense meeting yesterday with service providers in Ngaka Modiri Molema District to address the issue.
The department has acknowledged the urgency and is committed to clearing all outstanding payments by Friday, 9 May 2025,” said Sonakile.
Furthermore, Sonakile said that they have been in constant communication with the Department to receive updates regarding payments to the scholar transport service providers.
“The payment percentages were still very low yesterday, but the Department officials have assured us as the committee that they are working around the clock to process the outstanding payments to the service providers.
Based on the report that I have received I think they might be around 40% besides yesterday and today’s payments because we told them we will be monitoring up until Friday to see how much they would have settled the outstanding invoices,” explained Sonakile.
He stressed that the committee is serious about resolving the impasse hence they proposed a long-term resolution to the legislature.
“We’re serious as the committee, the big question must be how serious the department itself is in resolving the matter.
Because what we have done as the committee is to check what the root cause of the challenge could be, and we realised that there are huge challenges on the scholar transport on how the contracts were initially awarded, to the way the department has been running the programme in its entirety.
As we speak the department is running on a shortage of a budget of scholar transport, meaning every year around November, December they will experience a cash flow programme because they would have depleted their budget from the financial year,” remarked Sonakile.
Meanwhile, as part of the resolutions to the impasse, the committee has proposed that the department implement the invoice tracking system.
“The Department has since April 1, 2025, adopted the ‘Rea Patala’ invoice tracking system, as per the Committee’s resolution.
The National Public Works ICT Unit trained departmental staff on its use yesterday.
This system ensures invoices are processed efficiently and in line with legal requirements.
Secondly, we said there must be a submission of a Business Case on Funding Shortfall to present to the Provincial Treasury to address the current funding gap in scholar transport.
Although R85 million was allocated for scholar transport this financial year, there remains a shortfall of approximately R150 million and finally we proposed a Provincial Scholar Transport Summit to be called later this year,” said Sonakile.
According to Sonakile, the summit will be attended by service providers, provincial Treasury, the Department of Education, school principals, SGBs, and the committee.
The aim would be to establish a provincial scholar transport policy, define stakeholder responsibilities, improve monitoring, and ensure enforceable accountability.
