Afrirent gives city a break
Less than a week after Avis withdrew some of its rented fleet from the City of Joburg, Afrirent has decided not to ground its 2 000 vehicles the city is using.
“We have pledged to sign another extension so residents can continue to receive the necessary services from the municipality without fear of interruption,” said Afrirent chief executive Senzo Tsabedze.
Avis withdrew some of its fleet last week. Democratic Alliance (DA) councillor Leah Knott last week said the Avis contract was for cars, bakkies and trucks that city officials drive. The withdrawal of the fleet came amid delays to approve a new contract.
The DA’s McKinnley Mitchell said the process to approve the new contract started in January. The last extension of the Avis and Afrirent nonspecialised fleet contract was terminated at the end of October.
“This contract had been awarded to Avis and Afrirent under a tender which, in 2020, National Treasury declared irregular and ordered the city to cancel and do a thorough forensic investigation. The ANC government at the time did neither and took no steps to start a new tender process,” said Mitchell.
“We inherited this mess from the ANC; an irregular contract that had been constantly extended and no investigation done. There is an investigation underway to establish whether Afrirent had made payments to politically linked individuals and a glance at the numbers showed the city was not getting value for money. The new tender process started in January 2022 and due to its high value [over R2 billion] and time period,we had to consult the public.”
Tsabedze said the decision to extend the contract was a difficult one.
“Our name is being used for political point-scoring. The DA has been working with, and using, Afrirent cars for a year now and we have just agreed to another three-month extension. Why is it only now that the DA thinks the contract isn’t value for money?
“Afrirent currently supplies fleet services to more than 20 municipalities led by different political parties and we have never had issues. Why is [Joburg] an exception?”