Areyeng parks buses after stoning incidents

Areyeng bus operations have been suspended indefinitely after its buses were pelted with stones in Pretoria CBD on Tuesday.

Sam Matabane, the spokesperson for the bus operator, TRT, said the first incident happened at about 2.20pm at Church Square.

“The bus had passengers but there were no injuries [to passengers] or to the driver. The second one was at 3.35pm, in the city centre between Bosman and Boom streets. The bus had no passengers and the driver was not injured,” he said.

He said both incidents were reported to the Pretoria central police station.

“We wanted to run them on a limited scale during peak times. On Monday we ran without problems and on Tuesday we hit these issues and stopped. It's a pity, because as TRT we are an independent company and we are getting caught between the challenges of the city and its employees.”

An unprotected strike left Tshwane in disarray when workers downed tools in July to force the city to implement salary increases as per an agreement with the SA Local Government Bargaining Council. This after the city said it could not afford the R600m addition to the wage bill because of a shortage in revenue collection.

“Obviously there has been no end in sight with this thing. It becomes a challenge for the commuters whom we are here to serve. We are unable to serve our communities because of the impasse between the city and its employees,” he said.

“Operations are suspended indefinitely. We are engaging with the city together with the security cluster, because for us to operate we will need clearance from the security cluster, which will be engagements as we go along. We are just as frustrated as the passengers.”

He said they have had four different attacks where windows were broken and had estimated the damages to be more than R200,000, excluding those incurred on Tuesday.

Matabane said the non-operation is having a serious effect on the business.

He said their operations in Mamelodi were not affected.

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