COSATU calls on National Government to intervene in the N2 Bus fiasco

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is appalled at the ongoing crisis that has seen the termination of the N2 Bus Service in Cape Town. This crisis is borne out by the fact that the City and the operating bus company cannot come to an agreement on the extent and operations of the service. This has led to a situation where there are busses and there are routes and demand but due to administrative bungles the service is not running.

The National Government must step in urgently and get a court order forcing the service to continue under the old terms until the new contract details are finalised by the City and the contracting company.

Commuters in Cape Town are already suffering from lack of transport due to the chronic faults in the rail service. The taxi services are unsafe and unreliable and the bus services are completely inadequate for the current requirements. The roads are experiencing gridlocks with the number of cars forced on to the roads during peak hours, due to inadequate public transport.  

The DA wants to run the train services but it is unable to resolve a basic administrative issue and get the busses up and running. This again shows that the DA is only interested in playing political games and the urgent needs of commuters are disregarded.

COSATU demands that the Presidency steps in urgently as the Minister of Transport is clearly not able to put a stop to this sabotage of the limited public transport services in the Cape Town.

For further information, please contact Tony Ehrenreich, COSATU Deputy Parliamentary Coordinator at 082 773 3194