Nelson Mandela Bay’s political head of transport, Rosie Daaminds has been instructed by the ANC’s leaders in the city to explain an allegation of bribery against her.
A letter from ANC regional task team co-ordinator Luyolo Nqakula gave Daaminds until Wednesday to explain the allegation, reported in an article published in The Herald on Tuesday, that she had offered a R1m bribe to Spectrum Alert’s head of security, Adam Prince.
Prince alleged, in a statement to the police, that Daaminds and two others wanted him to open a case against the company’s board of directors over the theft of bus tickets worth R5,600.
In exchange, he was allegedly offered R1m, Prince said.
Daaminds denied the allegation outright, saying she had never even met Prince.
Police confirmed that they were investigating a case of intimidation.
On Wednesday, Daaminds denied any knowledge of the letter from Nqakula.
“No I don’t know about this. Speak to the ANC,” she said.
In the letter, Nqakula wrote: “We read in the media that there are allegations made against you as a deployee of the ANC in council and in your official capacity as MMC of roads and transport.
“You are therefore requested to provide the ANC with a written explanation which is to be submitted by Wednesday, January 15, 2020.”
Meanwhile, workers at Port Elizabeth’s only operational Integrated Public Transport System (IPTS) bus route — from Cleary Park to the Port Elizabeth City Centre — are demanding the municipality take over operations from Spectrum Alert.
The company has been tasked with running the bus service on behalf of the city.
Tensions have been high between Spectrum Alert’s board and the company’s employees, with workers demanding the board be dissolved.
The bus service was suspended for almost two weeks between December and January after about 250 workers downed tools in a wage dispute.
The workers, who have been paid intermittently for several months, were finally paid a week ago after Spectrum Alert received its money from the municipality.
The municipality released a statement saying the workers were now demanding that the metro should take over the operation of the bus service.
The statement said: “Following Spectrum Alert’s employee strike, the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality had a meeting yesterday [Tuesday] with the unions in the hopes of resolving the dispute and resuming the Libhongolethu bus services.
“Unfortunately, the meeting deadlocked as the workers are now demanding that the municipality should take over the operation of Libhongolethu bus services.
“The workers claim that the differences between them and the company [Spectrum Alert] are irreconcilable”.
South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) regional secretary Luyanda Mayekiso confirmed that workers wanted the municipality to take over the bus service but declined to comment further.
A worker who did not want to be named said workers had told municipal officials they no longer wanted the service to be run by a middleman.
“If Spectrum Alert is no longer there then it’ll solve 100% of our problems.
“There’ll no longer be late payments, we won’t have tax issues any more and we won’t have a dictatorship in the form of managers and directors any more,” the worker said.
Spectrum Alert CEO Trevor Harper accused the municipality of being malicious by releasing the statement while talks with the company were continuing.
“Spectrum Alert is a private company so the workers and the municipality can’t dissolve it,” Harper said.
“The only people who can dissolve the company are the directors on the instruction of the shareholders.
“The municipality and Spectrum Alert have an agreement called the vehicle operating agreement which stipulates what should happen in a case of a strike.
“Our interpretation is that there are certain rules the municipality must follow in terms of their agreement with us and the [Act] states quite clearly what should happen.
“It doesn’t state that in the case of a strike the municipality should come and take over our operations,” Harper said.
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