Durban - City Fleet, the unit tasked with the maintenance of the 8 000 vehicles belonging to eThekwini Metro, has been accused of failing to maintain the vehicles and taking too long to fix them when they break down.
These delays have impacted service delivery, with frustration building in the water and sanitation, parks and Durban solid waste (DSW) units, according to three councillors and a former senior manager, who spoke about the issues.
They claim the unit was besieged by challenges including that cars needing minor repairs were kept for extended periods.
But the head of the city’s fleet Malcolm Joshua rubbished the claims, and said his unit was one of the top performers in the city. He said the only time vehicles stayed in their workshop for longer periods was when the vehicles were brought in for minor work, but then the mechanics discovered other bigger mechanical problems.
Some councillors said the city’s fleet did not have a maintenance contract in place, which meant that every time there was a breakdown, the unit had to source the part through a tender.
DA councillor Warren Burne, who sits on the finance committee, said they received regular reports that pointed to “a malaise” within the unit.
“An issue that is raised is that some cars go there for repairs and they are kept there for long periods,” he said.
DA councillor Mzamo Billy, who sits on the human settlements and infrastructure services committee which oversees the city’s fleet, said they recently paid an oversight visit to the unit and discovered many problems.
“They did not even have a tyre contract in place. There is no maintenance contract in place, which means every time they want a spare part they have to go and get three quotes which delays the process,” he said.
“We have heard that for instance in the DSW unit, the vehicles had worn out tyres to the point that workers had to take used tyres (which were less worn) to put on the new trucks.”
IFP councillor Mdu Nkosi said the city’s fleet needed to understand the impact their performance was having on the rest of the municipality.
“Officials need cars to do their jobs. If they do not have cars, it means service delivery is not happening,” he said.
A source, who did not want to be named but who has knowledge of the challenges that occurred due to delays at the city fleet, said there was a lot of frustration, especially in units including parks, DSW and water over their vehicles being stuck at the city fleet.
“There is no maintenance contract in place and it is absolutely true that units like DSW found themselves having to use tyres from old vehicles or retread tyres.
“It is worse for DSW in that some of their cars are specialised vehicles and the skills to fix them are not available (in-house) so city fleet has to source those skills from the private sector and that contributes to the delays.”
But Joshua said they did have maintenance contracts in place that were managed by the supply chain unit.
He said their department was doing well in terms of the maintenance of the city’s 8 000 fleet, and weekly productivity meetings showed that they were among the top performing units in the city. He conceded there were challenges with spares, but that was as a result of global issues, he said.
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