MISA welcomes Special Investigating Unit (SIU) probe into collapse of North West state bus service
15 September 2026
For immediate Release
MISA, the Motor Industry Staff Association, welcomes President Cyril Ramaphosa's decision to authorise the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to probe allegations of serious maladministration, corruption and irregular expenditure at North West Transport Investments (NTI) who provided bus services for millions between Hammanskraal and Pretoria.
The proclamation also covers NTI's subsidiaries, North West Star and the Atteridgeville Bus Service, and empowers the SIU to recover any public money lost to wrongdoing.
For MISA, the majority trade union in the retail motor industry representing more than 80 000 members, this investigation is long overdue.
The collapse of NTI's bus services left an estimated 3.6 million commuters stranded, many of them workers who depend on affordable public transport to reach their jobs. When the buses stopped, our members were forced onto costly taxis, spending money they could not spare simply to get to work. The human cost of this failure has been carried, as always, by ordinary working people.
"NTI was run with public money, and the public deserves to know where that money went. Workers paid twice for this collapse, first through their taxes and then through their pockets when they had to find their own way to work. MISA rejects corruption, maladministration and the abuse of public funds in every form. We welcome this investigation, but an investigation is only the beginning. Those responsible must be held accountable and the money owed to workers and lost to the state must be recovered,” says Martlé Keyter, MISA’s Chief Executive Officer: Operations.
MISA notes that NTI reportedly owes more than R224 million in unpaid salaries and benefits and the Union insist that the workers affected by this crisis are not forgotten as the probe proceeds. Accountability must translate into a functioning, reliable bus service, not merely a report.
MISA calls on the SIU to act swiftly and transparently, and on the Gauteng and North-West provincial governments to maintain dependable transport without further delay. Since the 16th of August the provincial governments of the North West and Gauteng have implemented phased resumption of NTI bus services in Hammanskraal and surrounding areas in the City of Tshwane.
MISA is demanding that this service must not be interrupted again because the public depends on it. Public transport is a lifeline for workers and it must never again be allowed to collapse through greed or neglect.
Issued by Sonja Carstens, Manager: MISA Media & Communication Department, on behalf of the Union. For media enquiries, contact Phakamile Hlubi-Majola on 083 367 6417 or email [email protected].
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