Bus operators from the Great North Transport (GNT) bus company had to return to the depot on Thursday, 9 March, when protesting commuters from the Phadzima, Tshitavha, Vhulaudzi, Maelula and Murunwa areas blocked the Witvlag road to Murunwa.
The protesters are accusing GNT of rendering poor service, saying that the operators either do not arrive at the scheduled times to pick them up or, when they do, the buses are full and they get turned away.
The commuters say the monthly bus tickets they buy are going to waste as they must often take taxis. Those who cannot afford to take taxis have to go home, while those who can pay the extra money still arrive late for work.
They also complain about the condition of GNT's buses, claiming that they are not always roadworthy and that they are putting their lives at risk by using unsafe buses.
The furious commuters are threatening to picket outside the bus company's depot in Louis Trichardt to get their point across.
One of the commuters, Mr Mushe Mabirimisa of Murunwa, said many workers had been laid off by their employers for constantly arriving at work late. "Clearly many workers lose their jobs, not because of their own fault, but because of the bus company's incompetence. They send old and unroadworthy buses to our areas. Most commuters buy monthly tags to use the bus, but also have to keep extra monies on hand to take taxis on the days when the buses simply do not arrive," he said.
The spokesperson for the Limpopo Economics Development Agency (LEDA), Mr Leo Gama, said bus services had a customer-service line that commuters could call, should they experience any problems. "Each bus has a number that will help commuters identify it. We urge commuters to take down that number and report it to us. Appropriate action will be taken if it's found that the driver acted improperly."
He further said that GNT's drivers had been made aware that punctual pick-up and drop-off of commuters was key. "If a driver experiences a breakdown, another bus is immediately sent to pick up the passengers. The changeover will affect the time, but we are not aware of buses not arriving on the routes at all."
Gama said they would investigate whether GNT's buses had arrived late for pick-ups and added that, if the buses were unroadworthy, the duty of traffic officers was to report this.