Translux and City to City employees were on Thursday paid the outstanding half of their January salaries.

This comes after the company which could only afford to pay half of their salaries had failed to honour its promise of ensuring that the outstanding salaries were paid by Wednesday. 

Autopax, which owns the two bus companies, had kept its 1,070 employees on tenterhooks after failing to honour promises made on Monday by its management. 

It was only on Thursday morning that the promise to settle the other 50% was met, workers told Sowetan. 

Autopax, a subsidiary of the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa), is experiencing financial difficulties which have made it struggle to maintain its buses and pay salaries, among others.

Zanele Sabela, spokesperson of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu),  which represents some of the affected employees, said: "We are pleased Autopax workers received the balance of their salaries this morning. We look forward to engaging management on how they intend to turn around the organisation so as to avoid a recurrence."