Pretoria - The ANC in Tshwane has insisted that the municipality’s fleet of vehicles has been withdrawn by a service provider despite the claim being dismissed by the DA-led coalition.
According to the official opposition, the alleged repossession of vehicles has the potential to paralyse service delivery in communities.
In a media statement released by ANC regional secretary George Matjila, the party said it learnt of the withdrawal of the fleet with “total dismay”.
“This unfortunate occurrence has put the City’s service delivery capability to an abrupt and grinding halt,” the party said.
It further said the development signalled “failure by the DA-led administration”.
“It is now clear as daylight that the DA-led administration does not know how to run a city, and the people of Tshwane will continue to suffer for its ineptitude concerning matters of governance,” the party said.
Claims about the fleet withdrawal surfaced on Friday when former ANC chairperson Dr Kgosi Maepa tweeted: “We have just received bad news that the City of Tshwane’s fleet of vehicles were confiscated by the contract supplier. So service delivery in electricity, water, metro police, etc, will abruptly stop. The DA coalition has failed.”
Gauteng DA caucus leader Solly Msimanga took to social media to challenge “the so-called Tshwane vehicle repossession”.
He said: “Some of the fleet vehicles had to be returned already in December when the contract expired. The supplier kept on charging the City, and the City refused to pay and demanded they remove their vehicles.”
Msimanga said the City has 174 vehicles that would be bought out directly from the bank on their residual value because they were still in a good condition.
Mayoral spokesperson Sipho Stuurman said the City was de-fleeting and moving towards purchasing vehicles outright.
“This means as we de-fleet, vehicles have to go back. And we’ve redirected some of our vehicles to ensure service delivery continues while we are getting new vehicles of our own. There is nothing untoward about this process. The fact that we communicated back in February should indicate that this is a process we are managing,” he said.
In February, the City announced its fleet management strategy to significantly reduce vehicle leasing costs.
MMC for corporate and shared services, Kingsley Wakelin, said at the time: “The City outsources a large part of its fleet management services through service providers that supply fleet vehicles. However, in the past three financial years, the City has embarked on a process of acquiring vehicles through an outright purchase model and converting some of the leases to be owned by the City.”
Wakelin said the intention was to reduce the number of leased vehicles, which would cut the City’s annual leasing costs from R400 million to around R120m.
Pretoria News