This as the National Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula, is on Monday making his third return to the troubled metro, currently under administration. During president Cyril Ramaphosa’s Imbizo held in Bloemfontein in April, Mbalula told residents and President Ramaphosa that a forensic report followed stringent allegations of massive fraud and corruption in the project. 

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It is alleged that ten buses were procured through a lease contract and facilitation process that involved a middle man who scored a facilitation fee of about R20 million. It’s further alleged that the metro has missed at least six deadlines in phase 1 to complete the IPTN project, after numerous warnings by the Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Transport. 

ALSO READ: Mangaung Metro to meet irate residents 

The project is said to have cost the ailing metro at least R2 billion since its commencement in 2016, with feasibility studies that are said to have started in 2011, including accruals that ran into millions of rands.

“We are giving R1,4 billion and R900 million to the IPTN project, aimed at fixing roads. The fixing of the roads does not have to wait for the visit of the President. Roads must always be fixed. We are revisiting the municipality after the Easter holidays and will attend to the road problems at Soutpan and [elsewhere] that you mentioned in Mangaung. I'm not referring to the whole of the Free State. I will bring the South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL) to look at their community development budget to help fix the roads,” Mbalula previously told residents.

Addressing the workers, he said he heard that residents raised rumours of massive corruption. “But I have already told the municipality that I want a forensic audit immediately and in June I'll be coming back to check how far is the project,” Mbalula further added.

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