Cash-strapped council’s cars ‘repossessed’

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Johannesburg - The Emfuleni local municipality will start returning their fleet vehicles to the supplier because of an irregular leasing tender process. This after claims that the cars were repossessed after the municipality failed to pay R7million. Vanderbijlpark DA councillor Philip Nothnagel said the repossessed vehicles include those from the traffic, water and sanitation, fire and electricity departments. He said as a result residents should not expect any service delivery from the affected departments. It was alleged the ANC cash-strapped municipality, which was currently under administration, defaulted on payments and the vehicles were repossessed by the service provider. However, municipality spokesperson Stanley Gaba refuted claims the cars were repossessed. It was unclear who the service provider was and how many cars were leased.

“For the record, the municipality paid the service provider R7m on Wednesday. The municipality had also discovered that the contract had been irregular and has since begun a process to appoint a new fleet service provider.

“It must be noted that all municipal vehicles are currently in the possession of the municipality,” Gaba said.

He further said the contract with the provider ended in March and was not renewed.

There was an agreement between the two parties that the cars would be sent back in batches over three months from the next month.

As a result of the car fiasco, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) has called on Minister of Cooperative Governance Zweli Mkhize, Gauteng Premier David Makhura and the provincial and national treasuries to urgently implement Section 139, the constitutional provision that allows for the dissolution of municipalities, at Emfuleni.

“The White Paper on local government and the Local Government Systems Act stress the critical importance of community and civil society involvement in the governance of municipalities, yet all interventions in collapsed municipalities exclude civil society and community representatives,” said Outa executive director Makhosi Khoza.

She added that the municipality had failed to honour its financial obligations to Eskom, Rand Water and many other service providers.

“The councillors in Emfuleni municipality have failed to fulfil their electoral mandate. Allow communities and civil society to play a part in rescuing the collapsed municipality it is the communities that suffer when municipal services are not delivered or fail.”

The municipality owes Rand Water almost R214m and for the last seven months has experienced water shortages. The municipality blamed these on a 10% water cut by Rand Water because of the debt, but the service provider maintained the shortage was because the municipality’s pumps to their pressure tower were not operational. The municipality also owed Eskom about R200m.

The Star