The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality has inducted over a thousand residents from Port Elizabeth's Northern Areas to go out and raise awareness about it's newly launched Integrated Public Transport system.
The programme, called Community Champions, was officially launched by the Metro's head of Roads and Transport, Marlon Daniels on Tuesday.
He said currently IPTS buses and taxis cost the metro more to operate than it was receiving in revenue.
Daniels said the newly appointed community champions would embark on a door-to-door campaign to raise the awareness amongst the communities about how the buses and taxis operate.
"There are more people without cars in this metro than those with cars. There are a lot of people who have cars but they are unemployed and they cannot afford to put in petrol in their cars. There are a lot of challenges when it comes to transport," Daniels said.
The community champions would be paid a small stipend per day through the metro's Extended Public Works Programme.
Tania (28) from Gelvandale, who has been unemployed for four years, expressed her excitement about the employment opportunity.
She told the media that she had been unemployed and looking after her sister's children as a way to to make ends meet.
Devan Stevens (22) was grateful that he could be of service to his community
"It's keeping us out of the streets, out of dangerous situations like gangsterism and doing drugs," he said.
While Daniels was chuffed that this EPWP programme would benefit the community, he called the whole programme a messed up system.
He said officials had failed the people of Nelson Mandela Bay and how it had been marked by nepotism.
"EPWP is a mess, it's terrible and I'm unapologetically saying that it is messed up, you will find people are being recycled," he said.
Daniels said his main grievance was the fact that R97m had not been spent from the grant funding from the National Treasury.
He said the municipality was meant to spend the money before the end of June or it would go back to National Treasury.
" A couple of weeks ago I asked how much money is left when I was told there is another R30 million that we will not spend. Why is it that the money must go back to National Treasury where you could have been the beneficiaries of that money. I cannot accept it and I will have a problem if you accept," Daniels added.
He said the residents working as Community Champions were going to be paid using the money from national treasury however it was impossible to spend everything before Friday.
Daniels said he would demand answers from officials as to why the programme didn't start on time and how the residents would be paid after Friday.
