The new fleet of vehicles purchased by the municipality
The City of Tshwane announced on Tuesday that the new fleet of vehicles purchased by the municipality will benefit the Tshwane Ya Tima campaign, the Tshwane Metro Police Department and service delivery efforts in the city.
The new vehicles come at a cost of R60 million and are part of the municipality’s Fleet Strategy aimed at ensuring that the city owns its own vehicles rather than depending on leasing them from the private sector, according to MMC for Corporate and Shared Services Kingsley Wakelin.
“The Fleet Strategy was initiated in 2018 and it has already saved R400 millions of moneys that would have been spent on leasing,” announced Wakelin at the launch ceremony in Tshwane.
“The purchase of the new 161 fleet of vehicles brings to 1 513 the total number of vehicles purchased and owned directly by the City of Tshwane since 2018,” he said.
“We service all these vehicles through a hybrid method that includes private service providers and internal workshop capacity,” said Wakelin.
He emphasised that the new Fleet Strategy enables the municipality to monitor the vehicles’ drivers regarding fuel consumption, speeding and driver behavior so as to crack down on the abuse of the vehicles by holding drivers accountable.
Wakelin appealed to those driving the municipality’s vehicles to handle them with care and treat them like they were their own cars.
“The Fleet Strategy will be continued in the new year with a budget of over R40 million for frontline service delivery vehicles, replacing our aged and broken fleet,” he said.
“Today’s launch of the vehicles is at a cost of R60 million but represents savings of up to R200 million that would have been incurred by the municipality if the leasing strategy had still been in place,” he said.
The MMC said in December the municipality launched 235 vehicles at a cost of R100 million and saved R200 million in the process.
City of Tshwane mayor Cilliers Brink inside one of the fleet vehicles that the city purchased
“80 of the vehicles will go to the Tshwane Metro Police Department while the remaining 81 will be shared between Tshwane Ya Tima operations and service delivery matters,” announced Wakelin.
Speaking in appreciation regarding the launch of the new vehicles, City of Tshwane Mayor Cilliers Brink said the significance of the event was to double up the availability of vehicles for the Tshwane Metro Police.
“Our mandate is to execute by-laws enforcement, traffic control and preventative policing and when we have more vehicles than we can fulfil this mandate,” said the mayor.
“I am also happy that now we will have dedicated vehicles to better deliver services like water and electricity in Region 1 and 2 areas like Mabopane, Soshanguve and Hammanskraal,” he said.
He expressed pleasure about the fact that the Tshwane Ya Tima campaign will now also have more vehicles, thus making sure that those who can pay their debts do pay, so that the municipality can continue the financial recovery of a city which works for all its people.