eThekwini allocates more than R200m to replace ageing city vehicle fleet

The eThekwini municipality has set aside R210m to replace its ageing city fleet before the end of June.

The budget was adopted in an executive committee meeting at the Durban City Hall on Tuesday to reduce the vehicle backlog in the department of parks, recreation, culture and cemeteries (PRCC) before the end of this financial year.

A report by the city fleet unit to the committee shows the PRCC has 556 vehicles which need to be replaced, worth over R500m. Included in that is the backlog of 336 vehicles and 61 that were disposed of and not replaced.

The unit said it was operating an ageing fleet, with most vehicles having exceeded their lifespan. That is due to historical underfunding of the vehicle replacement programme because of “competing budgetary requirements” for projects.

“Whatever budgetary provisions that were made available had to be prioritised to critical replacements and new requests which resulted in a backlog in fleet replacements,” reads the report.

“The erratic vehicle replacement programme further compounded by premature failures as well as accident write offs has resulted in 48% of the PRCC department fleet being past replacement and a combined total of 67% of the fleet requiring to be replaced by the 2024/25 financial year.”

Lihle Phewa, deputy city manager for finance, said a budget for next year had already been allocated to replace vehicles but they also needed to speed up the backlog reduction in this financial year.

“To deal with the backlogs we are requesting we are given an opportunity to buy some of them before the end of June so we can reduce them before we move forward,” he said.

The fleet unit said there had been no provision for the R210m it needs in the current financial year, which runs up to the end of June, so it will have to be sourced from the city’s savings.

The members agreed but raised concerns about the efficiency of the workshops that maintain the city fleet and called for the exploration of other options to improve their performance.

The EFF’s Themba Mvubu said they were getting a sense that workshops were deliberately keeping vehicles for longer than necessary and suggested the committee looks at the possibility of outsourcing the maintenance and servicing of the city fleet.

“We can look at appointing an independent company that will be able to deal with our fleet to avoid a situation where there are cars that sit in workshops for very long times,” he said.

“We always talk about internal capacity, but if it fails we must not shy away from it. If you go to the workshops, they are always downsized.”

Andre Beetge from the DA disagreed, saying maintenance should continue being facilitated in-house and called for upskilling of internal labour.

Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda concurred. He said there should be a proper discussion on improving the management of the city fleet and ensuring procurement is done on time, and emphasised the city need to build internal capacity for vehicle maintenance.

“If we use more outside people, they will prolong the service so they can charge [more] for storage. It is important we build internal capacity to service our vehicles on time and we are efficient,” he said.

The ANC’s Nkosenhle Madlala said the city should look at sourcing its fleet from Durban-based vehicle manufacturers.

“Our position is that we should, by all means, try to have the bulk of our fleet procured from vehicle manufacturers based in Durban, as long as they meet the specs and everything else. By buying local we're ensuring our jobs stay in the city and we stimulate the city's economy,” said Madlala.

Deputy mayor Zandile Myeni said: “We must also include the issue of asset management strategy because we buy cars but when you go to the ground you find it's the opposite in terms of cars that are available.”

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