In an effort to accelerate service delivery, the Executive Mayor of the City of Johannesburg, Cllr Herman Mashaba, handed over 115 specialised vehicles to departments and entities at the Nasrec Expo Centre on Wednesday 31 July 2019.
Mayor Mashaba said he liked the approach the City took as part of austerity measures because the multi-party government went for the outright purchase of the vehicles and saved massively, more than half of what the lease option would have cost the City.
“We are really excited about this unprecedented delivery of 346 specialised vehicles, we really had to design specialised vehicles for our various departments. We bought specialised vehicles for the JMPD, City Parks & Zoo, Joburg Water, City Power and the JRA.
“This will boost the potential of service delivery to greater heights. The days where people do not respect the role of law in our City are over as the JMPD is now fully equipped in terms of impounding cars,” said Mayor Mashaba.
The City’s Group Corporate and Shared Services (GCSS) department managed to procure 346 vehicles, of which 115 were part of yesterday handover ceremony and 231 have already been handed over to various City departments and entities.
There was happiness all around as the mayor handed over keys to drivers, who described their new working tools as their offices as they spend most of their days in these vehicles.
The Member of the Mayoral Committee for GCSS, Cllr Ntombi Khumalo, said the vehicles are part of the City’s bigger plan to replace the ageing fleet across all departments, especially those providing essential services.
“Our department’s mandate is to ensure that the residents of Johannesburg receive the best services, delivered with pride. We support the rest of the City in a variety of areas, which include human resources, legal services and today’s attraction, fleet compliance & management,” she said.
MMC Khumalo said the design of the specialised vehicles centered on the safety of the City’s most valuables assets: the employees.
“If you noticed all the trucks are double cabbed, meaning the team using the truck will be accommodated unlike the old ones where it was only the driver and one or two passengers that would seat in front and the rest of the team would be at back of the truck,” she said.
