Daily Dispatch

Rusty fleet management

THE 1 000-odd Eastern Cape government vehicles slowly rotting away in provincial depots is an almost classic example of how bad public service management costs us all countless millions of rands a year. There is no other reason for it. It is also a sharp reminder why government should not try to run a business it does not understand.

The sorry saga of transport mismanagement goes back almost to the start of the provincial administration.

After struggling for years to provide critical transport like ambulances and other emergency vehicles, the province eventually decided to outsource the management of its fleet.

In 2003, a five-year contract worth billions of rands to supply and maintain the thousands of provincial vehicles was awarded to FleetAfrica, a reputable fleet management company owned by one of the biggest transport companies in the country.

That should have been the end of the province’s transport woes – but it was not.

Shoddy administration by the provincial bureaucracy resulted in FleetAfrica being paid too little, too late and incurred a rebuke by the auditor-general.

So, in 2008, the province decided that instead of fixing the system, it would change fleet managers.

Enter little-known Phakisa Fleet Solutions who secured the R2.8-billion contract under murky circumstances.

Again, the auditor-general was not impressed, and in a damning report found the process leading to the fleet tender award did not comply with tender requirements.

Within a year, it became glaringly obvious that Phakisa simply did not have the skills or finance to manage such a large fleet, and the dubious contract was canned.

Re-enter FleetAfrica, who were quietly brought back in to pick up the pieces.

Then in February 2012, FleetAfrica were again dumped, ostensibly to save costs, and the department of transport decided it would manage the 2 700 vehicle fleet itself.

Almost immediately there were problems with renewing vehicle licences (a third of ambulances, for example, were unlicensed within months).

Now we see that far from saving costs, millions of rands are simply rusting into the ground for no reason other than the inability to plan and administer the disposal of vehicles when they reach their distance limit.

How many more millions must be wasted before a fleet management system is put in place?

One hopes the government will start treating public money and assets with the respect and care they deserve and stop such waste.