Traffic chaos is expected in Cape Town today after the City of Cape Town suspended its N2 Express service.
Thousands of MyCiTi passengers will be left stranded after the City failed to secure a contract with service providers for the Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain bus routes.
Negotiations collapsed between the City and members of the N2 Express Joint Venture (JV) operating company on Friday, reports the Weekend Argus.
The company is made up of Route Six Taxi Association, Golden Arrow Bus Service (Gabs) and the Congress of Democratic Taxi Association (Codeta) who are at odds.
Codeta is opposed to working with Gabs and approached the W.Cape High Court on Friday, but failed to interdict parties from entering into new agreements.
“This is all about Golden Arrow dominating the operation, which prompted questions that if this is JV’s contract, why is Golden Arrow dominating every level of operation, from the employees to the handling of money?” asked Codeta’s lawyer, Barnabas Xulu.
In its court papers, Gabs denied the allegations, stating it had been sharing profits with the other parties as of last year, with R1 million given to each.
Gabs general manager, Derick Meyer, said Gabs is managing the running of 43 buses and
124 employees.
He said each shareholder stands to receive dividends “of [about] R5m to R6m” this year.
Route Six chairman, Henry Williams, said they are happy to let Gabs run the show for now.
“The coloureds and blacks don’t have the capacity to run a bus company of that nature as yet, but we are moving in that direction. This has become political because one party is not satisfied.”
The City has advised commuters to load mover points on their myconnect cards.
For those who have already bought a monthly ticket for June, the City will advise on options for reimbursement.