Sabotage and Crime: North West Legislature Committee Links NTI Bus Burnings to Attempts to Derail Entity’s Rescue

The Portfolio Committee on Community Safety and Transport Management in the North West Provincial Legislature, chaired by Hon. Freddy Sonakile, has concluded its two-day oversight visit to the North West Transport Investment (NTI), a provincial transport entity that has been trapped in business rescue for four years.

“We condemn, without hesitation, the burning of NTI buses. This is not vandalism, it is sabotage. Just hours after we were told the entity can still be saved and its fleet repurposed, three buses were torched. That is not coincidence. That is a calculated strike to bury NTI once and for all,” said Hon. Sonakile.

On Day 1, the Committee engaged the Premier, MEC for COSATMA, BRP 2, and NTI management, who delivered disturbing accounts of the entity’s daily collapse. Yet, amid the horror, a glimpse of hope emerged, every presentation confirmed that NTI still has a viable future if its resources are properly managed and its fleet repurposed. That hope was brutally undermined the very next morning, when news broke that four buses had been torched at the Durabuild depot, a development that strongly supported the views of a coordinated effort to deliberately sink the entity.
Sonakile described the situation bluntly: “Let us not sugarcoat it, what is happening at NTI is not poor management, it is criminal capture dressed up as business rescue.”

The Committee resolved to:
• Summon Business Rescue Practitioner 1, Mr. Thomas Sammons, under the Powers, Privileges and Immunities Act, after he failed twice to appear despite allegations that he controls NTI’s funds without oversight.
• Summon implicated service providers accused of being both signatories to NTI’s accounts and business contractors to the entity.
• Direct Treasury, COSATMA, and the Office of the Premier to explore a conditional bailout using sections 38 and 66 of the PFMA, recoverable through the business rescue process, to immediately pay workers and creditors.

The Committee also heard damning allegations of irregular property sales and received a Department of Labour report revealing NTI’s non-compliance with COIDA, UIF, and OHS laws, with cases now referred to the CCMA and Magistrate’s Court.

“What was meant to be a rescue has turned into a bloody legal battlefield, while NTI’s once world-class depots like Durabuild and Dana Viljoen lie vandalised and abandoned. This entity has been hijacked in broad daylight, metsi a shele re shebile,” Sonakile said.

The Committee noted some progress from Hawks and SIU investigations into NTI-related cases and will finalise its recommendations next week. The Committee will then table a no-nonsense, legally tight report to the Legislature for urgent action.