Joburg City’s suspended fleet back on streets
DA blames ANC for vehicles being recalled by leasing companies
Johannesburg can expect to have leased police and other service vehicles taken off the streets last week back on the road as early as tomorrow, says Joburg MMC for corporate services Leah Knott.
Knott yesterday said they had made progress with the vehicle leasing companies and expected that the rest of the fleet would be on the streets by tomorrow. The fleet grounding caused the city’s Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) and Joburg Water (JW) vehicles out of circulation, but a few of those had started returning to work.
“We have 17 out of 124 from Avis grounded and 30 from Joburg Water out of 306.
“JMPD has a further 1,176 with Afrirent and JW has 373 with Afrirent which are on the road,” said Knott.
Last week, fleet management company Avis withdrew its vehicles, citing non-payment by the Johannesburg municipality.
Knott has insisted that the municipality had the money but would not pay because the ANC should shoulder the blame, even though the contracts were entered into in 2018 under the leadership of then DA member Herman Mashaba, who now heads ActionSA.
“This crisis is a direct result of the attempts by the Coalition of Corruption led by the ANC to capture the City’s resources at the expense of service delivery. I would like to assure all residents that the vehicles being recalled are temporary while we put emergency measures in place to protect our fleet.
“The current fleet affected is what we call the non-specialised fleet: the trucks, vans, cars and bakkies that are used by JMPD, City Power, Joburg Water and all other branded City vehicles. The contract for the lease of this fleet is with Afrirent and Avis and it expired on October 31 2022.
“The City has more than enough funds to pay for the fleet but we cannot pay for something that is not within a legal contract term. The Pikitup waste management fleet is not affected by this contract.”
Mashaba was elected mayor in August 2016 and stayed on at the helm of the city until November 27 2019 even though he had resigned as mayor and DA member a month earlier. He was replaced by the ANC’s Geoffrey Makhubo in December 2019.
Investigative journalism outfit Amabhungane in 2018 ran a series of stories alleging that Mashaba – then DA member and Joburg mayor – gave black-owned Afrirent the city’s fleet management contract in return for buying the EFF’s support to keep him as a minority government leader.
However, Afrirent has denied the allegations.
Despite these publicly known accusations, Knott insisted that the ANC “and officials loyal to their programme of state capture in the City of Johannesburg” were responsible for the dodgy fleet contract.
Mashaba launched an investigation at the time, which concluded that there was “no direct political interference from the executive”.
Further forensic investigations were still underway when the ANC took over the City in December 2019.
“These investigation were concluded but never actioned by the ANC. We have ensured that the findings of the investigations were brought to life and that charges were laid with the police and Hawks and that internal disciplinary processes continue against implicated officials,” Knott said.
Knott said the DA-led administration was facing “considerable resistance from officials who are clearly trying to hide corruption and who are working with the ANC to restore the party to power”.
“Everyone knows the City of Johannesburg’s resources are critical to the patronage networks of the ANC in Gauteng, and with the upcoming ANC electoral conference these resources are no doubt critical to factional battles in the ANC.”
The ANC in Joburg didn't respond to calls for comment.
The ANC in Johannesburg did not respond to the request for comment.
‘‘ The City has more than enough funds to pay