The troubled Madibeng Local Municipality in Brits, North West, says it is determined to emerge strong from its financial woes, which have beset the municipality for years.
To turn its fortunes around, the municipality – among others – plans to buy its own fleet of cars instead of leasing vehicles for more than R9 million a month.
Over the past three years the municipality spent R330 million on leased vehicles. Last year, the Auditor-General’s report revealed the municipality’s irregular expenditure had increased from R61-million to about R500 million in a year.
The Madibeng Local Municipality is among many districts that are under administration due to poor performance and maladministration. Newly appointed administrator, Paul Maseko, who has been in office for two months, says drastic changes are needed.
“We are going to buy small bakkies that we were hiring in the past. We’ve discovered that most of the expenses come from the negligence of the drivers when they drive the vehicles. The measures that we are introducing; all cars are going to have a tracker that will inform us when the driver gets out of the set boundaries that he /she is supposed to be in and even the negligence, the speed, and the driving patterns of the driver will be monitored by this tool that we are introducing,” explains Maseko.
Opposition parties say the move will steer the municipality in the right direction. Democratic Alliance caucus leader in the Madibeng Local Municipality, Jan Van Rhyn, elaborates, “This will obviously help to get the municipality fleet on track, the vehicles which the municipality will own itself instead of leasing and pay a huge amount of money. This is actually, on our view, a very good thing.”
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) shares the same sentiment.
“It will definitely assist the municipality in making sure that they make a turnaround and save a lot of money because if the municipality firstly buys the vehicles, they will definitely spend less than R60 million to procure those vehicles and employ people who are going to service those vehicles, so they will definitely save a lot of money because currently, they have lost instead of saving,” says EFF Provincial Secretary, Papiki Babuile.
However, the DA warns that it will take much more to bring the municipality back on track.
“What needs to be changed in this municipality is that we need leadership. We don’t have leadership in this municipality. Once we get proper leadership we can get this sinking ship of the municipality back on track, and hopefully, with the appointment of the new administrator, we are on the right track,” says Van Rhyn.
The municipality says its decision to stop leasing cars will not interrupt service delivery.
