Minister Fikile Mbalula will today visit the City of roses, Bloemfontein as previously promised at the Presidential Imbizo that was held at the beginning of the year. Today’s visit will also focus on assessing transport interventions on infrastructure developments and drive to accelerate service delivery in the Free State province’s transport sector. He previously requested a forensic audit report of the controversial multimillion-rand Integrated Public Transport Network (IPTN) Hauweng project.

ALSO READ: Minister requests forensic audit report of Mangaung's IPTN

OFM News previously reported that the request for the forensic report follows stringent allegations of massive fraud and corruption in the project with further allegations that ten buses were procured through a lease contract and facilitation process that involved a middle man who scored a facilitation fee of about R20 million.

It’s alleged that the metro has missed at least six deadlines in phase 1 to complete the IPTN project, after numerous warnings by the Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Transport. The project is said to have costed the ailing metro at least R2 billion since its commencement in 2016, with feasibility studies that are said to have started in 2011, including accruals that ran into millions of rand.

OFM News