Canaan Mdletshe

Canaan Mdletshe

The grounding of eThekwini municipality public transport system for the next three months has angered opposition political parties in KwaZulu-Natal.

The parties called on two senior municipal leaders - the mayor and municipal manager - to resign with immediate effect over the suspension of the Durban bus service

The DA said mayor Obed Mlaba should resign while Cope also demanded the same of municipal manager Mike Sutcliffe.

"The DA has already recommended that, should the termination of the contract succeed, the owners and directors of Remant Alton be blacklisted from receiving any further contracts from the council in their own names or through companies which they own," said DA caucus leader John Steenhuisen yesterday.

"In any properly functioning democracy a scandal on this scale would have brought down the administration.

"The DA refused to vote in favour of the repeated financial bail outs in the absence of a full financial disclosure by the company and its owners," he said.

Cope provincial spokesperson Siyanda Mhlongo said it was high time the ANC dismissed Sutcliffe for the inconvenience he and his administration had caused commuters who had been left stranded.

IFP caucus leader in the eThekwini council and the national women's brigade chairperson, Thembi Nzuza, attributed the bus shutdown to the "ANC-led eThekwini municipality's preoccupation with self-enrichment and jobs for pals".

But Sutcliffe said he would not entertain such comments from political parties.