The Democratic Alliance (DA) has asked the Office of the Auditor General to probe the Dikgatlong municipality’s more than R6,5 million expenditure on eight double cabs and three sedans, neglecting critically needed procurement of yellow fleet vehicles.
The municipality’s TLB has been out of service for years. Its two refuse trucks are both more than ten years old and not sufficient to service the whole of Dikgatlong, leaving the towns of Barkly-West, Windsorton and Delportshoop in a dirty and neglected state. The sewerage drainage truck is also unable to keep up with the workload. Even though community members pay for drainage it sometimes takes weeks to clean and empty septic tanks due to limited capacity.
These are some of the many service delivery challenges facing Dikgatlong residents, who have also been dealing with long-term intermittent water shortages, sewerage spills and dangerous potholes for years.
Vehicles are an important tool to allow municipal units to respond to service delivery complaints, like water leaks and electricity outages but the municipality’s choice of more passenger orientated vehicles, as opposed to service delivery vehicles and trucks, is perplexing.
I have requested the Office of the Auditor General in the Northern Cape to specifically include the mass vehicle purchase in the annual audit. DA councillor, Daisy Hendricks, has also submitted questions to the municipality, to ascertain exactly what the eleven vehicles will be utilized for, as well as to which units they have been allocated. The DA has also requested a review of the fleet management policy and that councillors receive a briefing with regards to securing the vehicles and preventing misuse, through measures such as the the installation of tracking devices.
The DA will closely monitor the use of the vehicles to determine whether they are being used to elevate service delivery, or for personal and non-essential use by officials.
Dikgatlong cannot afford to wrack-up fuel and vehicle maintenance bills for joyrides, while services suffer.