UnSAFE, UnRELIABLE and UnAFFORDABLE

Safety and affordability means customer care.

I took an Intercape Mainliner bus from Pretoria on the morning of 23 May 2015 at 05:30 bound for Maputo through Nelspruit. The bus arrived at Johannesburg Park Station at approximately 06:35. The bus conductor advised passengers to grab coffee as the bus was going to depart at 08:00. Myself and two other passengers took the opportunity to grab a bite at Wimpy. When we returned to the bus at 07:40 we were told that the bus had left at 07:30. We quickly rushed to the parcel weigh in point to request assistance. We were directed to the Intercape front desk where we had to seek someone either called Desmond or Monde, who we were informed was the Manager.

The ladies there nonchalantly wanted to know our ticket numbers. One of us had her ticket with her while we had left ours inside our bags in the bus. We however had our ticket numbers which we gave to them. They idly got on the phone and told us that the gentleman denies that he said the bus was departing at 08:00. They insisted he said 07:30. We inquired how could the three of us who were sitting at different sections of the bus hear the same ‘wrong message’. The ladies were adamant that we heard it wrong as the departure time was 07:30. We insisted that there is no way that three people who did not know each other until a few hours ago could have schemed to lie about departure time.

They sent us to a gentleman named Mhlambi who was on the boarding terminus and alleged to be the manager. When we finally found Mhlambi he started by giving us a lecture about how the bus left at 07:30 and refused to listen to our complaint beyond the fact that the bus had left us behind and was carrying our luggage. We then inquired about the next stop and he said it was Bertrams, roughly two kilometres from Park Station. We requested him to delay the bus as we would find a way to get there. He told us that the Intercape bus is like an aeroplane; it cannot be stopped once it has ‘taken off’. Time was 08:10. When we asked him what time does it leave Bertrams he assured us that it departs at 08:30 and that its next stop is Witbank.

We rushed and booked a R100.00 maxi taxi to Bertrams. The driver drove fast through traffic and finally arrived there at 08:21. When we inquired with the ticketing agent she said the bus left long ago. “It left at 07:50” she assured us. We stood there wondering why the bus conductor and Mhlambi gave us wrong information about the departure times of the bus.

We then called Intercape Customer Care to lodge our complaint. We were not getting any useful help even when we gave them our ticket numbers. At the end of the day, after failing many times to get assistance the other passenger we were with managed to have her ticket converted by the agent at Bertrams so she can board Translux bus service to Maputo through Nelspruit. When it became obvious that we were not getting relief from the Intercape Call Centre and the agent who told us that her system cannot print Translux tickets even with our ticket number we finally decided to buy Translux tickets so we can get to Nelspruit and rescue our luggage. We both paid R520.00 for Translux even though we were supposed to have travelled on our R209.00 Intercape tickets each.

Once in the Translux bus an Intercape consultant called George called to inquire about the descriptions of the bags and their code so that they can be dropped at Nelspruit where we would salvage them. We described them and minutes later he called to confirm that the bags have been found and they will be left at Nelspruit. We asked how do we lodge an official complaint and he said a consultant will call us about that. The call never came but we got a Ref number C63459. Our complaint to George was that we wanted a reimbursement of our R260.00 since we were not at fault and we had spent R100.00 on a metre taxi and R260.00 on a new ticket.

When we got to Nelspruit at 12:57 and rushed to the Intercape office we found it closed. The security guard told us that the lady had left for the day and we can only salvage our bags either on Sunday or Monday. Everything that I owned was in that hand luggage; house keys, toiletries, clothes and sensitive documents. I come from Bushbuckridge which is roughly 80 kilometres from Nelspruit and the thought of going home without house keys frustrated me. I wondered why did the Intercape office worker leave before 13:00 which I believe is the knock off time.

I called the Call Centre and spoke to a consultant called Sharon who we requested to call the Nelspruit lady to release our bags since she had not been gone for ten minutes and was still around. She refused to call and to give numbers for us to go fetch her and take her back to the taxi stop if she was there.

I ended up booking accommodation in Nelspruit for the night so that I can salvage my house keys and bags the following Sunday, 24 May 2015. I only managed to get my back on that Sunday and left for Bushbuckridge.

I should confess that I felt abused, inconvenienced and short-changed by the service I received at Intercape and proposed a remedy in two letters sent to them. They ignored them and when I finally called a lady named Jessica on the 2^nd of June 2015 she was firm that they will not compensate for any of us. She was firm and cocky that Intercape did nothing wrong and that they will not compensate. I said fine; all I knew is that I will share my story with as many media as possible and we will see who will suffer reputational damage in the long run.

My advice to you: DON’T BOARD INTERCAPE. OR. DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK. THEIR STANDARDS ARE THE LOWEST I HAVE FOUND IN A BUS SERVICE. Hahahahahahahaha! This is funny.

MPUMALANGA'S FINEST

The evolution of JZ

Originally published at PoliTrick or Treat

A few weeks ago the media was buzzing with a dumb American gimmick that is totally irrelevant to South Africa. I'm talking about that silly "100 days in office" PR stunt that was pulled. Predictably, everybody and their mamma had nothing but praise for our leader. Everybody was giving him cliche titles like "man of the people" "approchable" and so on and so forth. In the words of the great Andile Mngxitama, The same people, including the moral crusaders, who were telling up Zuma is not fit for the presidency were now dick-riding Zuma to the fullest. But has anybody asked themselves why? I mean, Zuma is still Zuma what exactly is it that he did that transformed him from Supervillain to hero? I'm gonna offer a reason for this:

The reason is simple. Unlike the likes of Malema et al, Zuma (or rather his PR team) is smart enough to practise an art I'd like to call "tip toeing around whitey", He knows well that media serves the interest of the minority because the minority have the money and money is power. The bottom line is money has to be made, one can do the honourable thing and speak the truth or they can tell everybody what they want to hear to get them to buy shit and advertise in their papers. So Zuma goes about telling people what they wanna hear and I'll point out two instances where he did this.

1. His stance on crime

Those of us who were fortunate enough to live in a society that wasn't cocooned from the real world know very well that the whole bullshit that the media is trying to sell that crime has grown out of control is....well, bullshit. The real story is that crime used to affect one section of the population, once it started affecting the other section, the wealthy and powerful section, We then got to hear about th ''crimminals that are taking over our country". What's the best way of winning over the wealthy section? Tell them that it is time to get tough on the crimminals. The asshats who lost at Polokwane used to boast by releasing crime stats, telling the country on how crime rate is declining then comes this guy who tells everybody what they wanna hear, "the crimminals have more rights than the victims, it's time we get tough on crime".

2. His stance on race issues

By now we all know the story, Julius being Julius says something sensational, Julius Malema raises the issue of minorities in the economic cluster, Defence and Military Veterans Minister Lindiwe Sisulu suggests that we need a dialogue on the race question and what did Zuma say? The smart thing: "The ANC is a non-racialist organization........Debating race is backwards" (I'm paraphrasing here). Some people where up in arms over that statement, I was disappointed as well but Zuma and his PR team are very smart people, they know very well that because of past injustices the majority were left penniless, the majority were left with the bulk of the wealth. Like I've said before, money is power. Who wants to guess which section of the population were left powerless? Anyhoo, Zuma has been a villain for almost five years he wants to feel appreciated for once, can we all give him a break. The worst thing he could do is threaten white hegemony. Let's get real we live in a country were the "minority" own almost all the wealth, some (if not most) want to keep it that way, a debate on race would include a debate on such things. Zuma has to appear as if he's the non-threatening black guy not willing to do anything worthwhile for the people who got fucked for four hundred years. If you've seen the type of comments at the times lately, you'd know that people would like to see the majority in the situation their in, they don't want change. They feel like change would mean upliftment of the previously oppressed at the expense of them by saying we shall have no debate on race Zuma is basically telling them "you can relax, things will stay exactly as they are". That's exactly what they wanna hear.

Let me leave it at that before I piss more people off. If you feel different then bad luck, we live in the age of Zuma, "there shall be no debate on such matters". Kidding, if you disagree with me. Speak on it!

All Hail The King



As you can see on our poll on the side bar most visitors of this blog have prophecied that the Afrikan National Congress will emerge as the winner in last week's elections. It was foregone the minute food parcels, old age pension and social grants entered the fray as electioneering fodder.

Quite frankly that was bad politicking. I obvioulsy wouldn't have loved it if some cocky campaigner came to my hypertensioned granny and told her that she would lose her pension if she didn't vote ANC because my granny has been getting pension even when the Boers were the bosses. So, before they were kicked out of power they came to my granny and told her that if she doesn't keep them in power they will take away the pension. 15-years later she's still here and they are in Orania. So, these stupid sods who intimidate our grannies with threats of lost pensions must think twice - someday my granny will still be here and they will be dead.

Okay, the reason behind this post is to congratulate Uncle Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma as he prepares to ascend the hottest seat in South Afrikan politiks. It will be a seat hotter than Deborah Patta's one on 3rd Degree because he's going in almost alone. Some of those usual suspects who have every intention of uprooting the double header are remaining outside - you can count them, Tokyo Sexwale and Matthews Phosa. Come to think of Tokyo (the capital of Japan), who for a reason known to him and Mugabe does not want to use his other angelic name of Gabriel; he ran for president of the ANC against Thabo Mbeki and JZ and he now wants all of us to be convinced that he does not harbour presidential ambitions? Nigga please!

However from May 9th Uncle JZ will be the man in the West Wing, which made me feel pity for Uncle Kgalema when he was voting because not only was he voting the Double Head into office he was also voting himself out. And now the Nkandla Mafia (borrowed from Mail&Guardian) is coming. The machine gun is now fully in JZ's hands. And Aunt Helen (Zille) has retreated to her small Volkstaat called Wes Kaap where she will comfortably pee outside (oops, she's a woman she can't pee outside like some of us with Willies). Sorry Aunt.

May 9, is the day to diarise as all the supporters, including the Sopranos, Msholozi's own Biker Boys will be ushering him into Die Unie Gebou. And who said dreams can't come true? All Hail the King from Enkandla! Halala Msholozi Halala! Now let's deliver services and cut the bullshit.