Mnquma auctions redundant assets to raise funds
A grader fetched R670,000 on Wednesday when Mnquma municipality auctioned some of its assets.
Another grader was sold for R455,000, a loader for R141,000, a roller was bought for R92,000, while a 2010 Nissan Pathfinder SUV used to chauffeur council speaker Thobeka Bikitsha fetched R75,000.
While the cash-strapped municipality could not immediately say how much had been made from the auction, municipal manager Silumnko Mahlasela said the Butterworth-based local authority was about R4m richer.
The assets, which included the Pathfinder, caterpillar graders, TLBs, tractors, rollers, trailers, SUV bakkies, sedans and office furniture, went under the hammer as a way of trying to address the municipality’s financial woes.
The speaker’s car was purchased by a Kokstad businessman, Riaan van der Walt, who said he would use the vehicle as a family car. “I do not know the speaker personally – no one knows the car belonged to her.
“The car is the only one that drove off from the auction, so it is still in good condition.”
Mahlasela said the auction was part of a wide-ranging revenue enhancement strategy aimed at boosting the reserves of the municipality’s service delivery budget.
When asked how the municipality planned to carry out future projects, Mahlasela said the municipality had sufficient equipment to do so.
“We have an existing fleet that is up and running and the auction mainly is a revenue enhancement to get rid of equipment that had become redundant in that it was out of use and taking up space.”
He said the old and disused fleet had been gathering dust at the infrastructure development unit, at a huge cost to taxpayers.
“The current state of bankruptcy has a direct correlation to the inability of the municipality to deliver services,” he said. The the municipality was trying to address this by increasing its reserves.
The car is the only one that drove off from the auction
Riaan van der Walt
Purchaser