Hundreds of thousands of Durban commuters will be stranded for the next three months and hundreds of bus drivers and technicians are out of work following a decision on Friday by the eThekwini Municipality to terminate the Remant Alton bus company's contract.
This means the eThekwini Municipality, home to more than three million people, has no official bus service.
On Friday, the city dropped the bombshell on the bus company, which had earlier this week requested the city to assist it by allowing the company to suspend its operation for a month so it could sort out its numerous problems.
Instead of agreeing to the request, the city turned on the bus company and announced the termination of its existing bus transport contract.
Mayor Obed Mlaba said due to the fact that Remant Alton had declared itself technically insolvent and in breach of the contract they would give the service 14 days to remedy the breach.
But this is just a formality and Mlaba said the company was in serious trouble and "it was not a matter where they could walk in and turn things around".
DA leader in eThekwini John Steenhuisen, who has been calling for the head of Remant Alton for more than two years, said this decision should have been taken two years ago.
"We said in August 2008 that buying back the assets and keeping Remant Alton is folly and now we have been vindicated.
"I think it's disgusting the service had to get to the level it has for the city to take action and the only reason it has taken so long is because we have been dealing with a network of cronies.
"Hundred of millions have been squandered on a corpse that is Remant Alton and the question has always been, 'why is the ANC trying to rescue Remant Alton?'.
"This shows that the crony system always hurts the poorest of the poor.
"We are about 450 days away from the 2010 Soccer World Cup and have no transport. If this had happened in any other country it would have brought down the government. The political responsibility lies with city manager Michael Sutcliffe and a few of his officials and the mayor," said Steenhuisen.
A Remant Alton statement released by chief executive officer Jay Singh said the company had been dealing with intimidation of workers, robberies, hijackings, shooting of buses, the alleged murder of one employee and the forcible removal of workers from the depots.
It had also indicated that the closure of the company's maintenance function following the sale of the buses back to the municipality and outsourcing of maintenance of buses had led to retrenchment and trade unions have challenged the retrenchment process.
But the council was not prepared to give Remant Alton any more time to recover.
Sutcliffe said the company received R308-million in 2007- 2008 from the government as subsidy funding for the service.