Great North Transport unveils new fleet of buses

Commuters who rely on Great North Transport (GNT) for their safe transportation can breathe a sigh of relief following the official hand over the first batch of ten recently procured, new buses by Premier Stan Mathabatha at GNT depot in the city on Tuesday.
It was learnt that the first 10 buses will offer the necessary support to the existing fleet as well as indirectly boost the provincial economy by ensuring effective transportation of commuters to various destinations. When delivering his speech, Mathabatha mentioned that they have accordingly allocated R380 million for the recapitalisation of GNT over a period of three years. Part of this money is to be used for the procurement of this fleet, he explained. It was further reported that 20 more buses will be received in 15 days and the remaining 43 by April.
Mathabatha indicated that Provincial Government approved the GNT turnaround strategy in October last year with a capital injection allocated of R270 million during this financial year.
Information provided by the Department of Economic Development, Environment and Tourism (Ledet) highlighted that R71 million has been paid to Mercedes-Benz as deposit for the 75 buses and R34 million has been paid to MAN to retain 40 buses.
It was further outlined that 20 buses will be allocated to the Makhado depot and 55 to the Polokwane depot. Information revealed that in the next financial year the GNT board will approve the leasing of 155 buses to be distributed to the rest of the depots.
Mathabatha said that all new buses are to be equipped with electronic trip monitoring systems. He reminded that through the buying of the new buses 2 000 permanent jobs have been sustained and concluded by saying R814 million has been set aside to support public transport in the 2020/21 financial year.

Story: ENDY SENYATSI
>>endy@observer.co.za