Services in Dawid Kruiper municipality are grinding to a halt as an increasing number of requisitions, for the repair and maintenance of municipal vehicles, pile up.

There is a backlog of over 500 requisitions waiting to be sanctioned, with about 20 outstanding job cards per mechanic. The mechanics cannot complete jobs because they are waiting on parts.

A compactor, valued at R5 million which was bought last year, has been parked at the rubbish dumps for the past month. A requisition for parts was already submitted on 24 February 2021. The vehicle cannot be serviced until Supply Chain Management (SCM) issues have been resolved. The requisition has apparently received its third level of approval, but a total of six approvals are required for the process to be finalised. In the meantime, the compactor may not operate, else its guarantee will lapse. Lorries also can’t get into the dumps, so they are dumping rubbish at the entrance. Strong winds are causing rubbish to be strewn all over the place.

There are many similar cases.

Two Graders, one of which has been non-operational for almost two years, are parked in workshops. All they need is replacement plates to protect the blades. Due to prolonged delays to fix a 16-ton lorry used for moving machinery around, that has also not been operating for about two years, a further R5 000 is now also needed to replace its batteries.

The SCM unit just cannot get so far as to resolve the respective requisitions or even provide us with a timeline of when outstanding requisitions will be finalised. The municipality blames the hold-up on their shift to a new system. The reality, however, is that a complete disjuncture exists between the finance unit and the municipal garage, with SCM personnel simply not having the expertise required to procure the necessary parts. This is why the DA has been calling for a mechanic, with the necessary expertise relating to parts, to form part of the SCM unit, but to date our pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

The DA previously requested a meeting with the Municipal Manager and the committee of Budget and Treasury, to discuss and investigate issues pertaining to municipal vehicles but to date nothing has changed. We will table a further request for a high-level investigation to be launched into the inefficiencies of the SCM unit as a matter of urgency. Failure of which will leave residents with no option but to replace the incompetent ANC-governed municipality with a municipality that is governed by the DA, if they want to revive service delivery in and around Upington.

 

Issued by The DA