A scrapyard — that is how roads and transport political head Bradley Murray described the Diaz Road depot, which is overflowing with rusted and damaged vehicles.
He wants the municipality to scrap its fleet management system and hire a private contractor to lease vehicles for the city’s various departments.
With a section of the depot filled with wrecked vehicles haphazardly piled on others in various states of disrepair, the depot has become a startling sight of neglect.
The Herald reported last week on the contents of a leaked internal audit which flagged the city’s fleet control system as inadequate, labelling it as high-risk.
Troubles at fleet management have been a long time coming, marked by dozens of damaged vehicles accumulating at depots due to repair delays, with at least one refuse truck booked in since 2020.
The report revealed that the municipality had no fleet management tracking system for eight years, placing vehicles at risk of misuse, theft or hijacking.
During a tour last week, Murray revealed the dire state of the depot.
“Diaz has become a dumping [ground], but it is the same situation in other depots where hundreds of vehicles are idling because we cannot fix them,” he said.
Murray said the depot was just a microcosm of the problems at fleet management which had led to hundreds of vehicles being left unrepaired.
“The truth is the municipality cannot afford to repair many of the vehicles here ... many of them will cost us more to repair than to just buy a new one to replace it,” he said.
He estimated the replacement value of the entire fleet to exceed R1bn.
With this amount, Murray said they were exploring bringing in a private operator that would see the metro lease vehicles.
“We investigated the vehicle lease agreement (VLA) that is in place in Johannesburg and we have already had a presentation on how that can be done here.
“If we replace all our stock [by leasing vehicles] we can ensure that those vehicles are maintained through the service plan of the service provider.
“That takes away the responsibility of fixing the vehicles which we are currently unable to do.
“If a truck is in an accident, it takes very long to get back on the road, and all that can be fixed because the VLA will cover the insurance of the cars,” he said.
A plan to bring in a private contractor would depend on the budget available and the council’s approval.
While overseen by the city’s fleet management, vehicles are purchased and registered as assets of the different directorates.
Infrastructure and engineering political head Khanya Ngqisha said his directorate had budgeted R20m for the 2024/2025 financial year for new vehicles.
Public health executive director Sizwe Mvunelwa said R90m had been budgeted for compactors in the next three years.
At the entrance of the Diaz Road depot, three VW GTIs were gathering dust without tyres.
In a section at the back of the facility, vehicles marked as “precinct patrol” were piled on other rusting cars, many of which no longer had doors or windows.
According to Murray, there were about 700 vehicles in the fleet.
“In the last financial year, the council approved [to write off and auction] 500 vehicles which were beyond repair and obsolete.
“Of these 500 vehicles, 40 were auctioned off with R400,000 raised.
“That allows us to clear the depots,” he said.
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