Instead of buying new refuse compactors, the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality wants to spend more than R23m to refurbish nine of the broken 58 refuse trucks to boost solid waste removal efforts across the city.
But the recommendation did not sit well with some councillors, who suggested that the money rather be spent on buying new trucks to ensure long-term use.
The news comes as the municipality recently spent R30m to procure seven new compactors, with the last two of the seven unveiled to the public last week.
The matter was discussed at a public health committee meeting on Thursday, with the report tabled by public health executive director Sizwe Mvunelwa deferred to the next meeting for a further assessment of the trucks.
The report indicates that of the 58 trucks owned by the city, 26 require repairs, while 32 have been vandalised with parts stolen and wires cut.
According to the report, the trucks have not been working for between two to six years, with 18 of them scrapped and removed from service.
“The public health solid waste management and fleet management services undertook an investigation to determine whether some of our refuse compactor trucks can be refurbished to supplement the number of municipal-owned refuse compactors,” Mvunelwa wrote in the report.
“Only nine refuse compactors were identified as refurbishable based on their condition.
“It will cost the municipality R23.5m to resuscitate and bring life to nine refuse compactor trucks.
“It’s also worth noting that in the 2024/2025 financial year, solid waste management was allocated a capital budget of R30m for the procurement of refuse compactor trucks.
“Only seven refuse compactor trucks were procured with full maintenance plans.
“So, the plan is to remove the nine that are to be refurbished [and] park them somewhere while awaiting refurbishment.”
The city has budgeted R30m over three years to purchase refuse compactors.
Mvunelwa said in the report that adding nine refurbished trucks to the seven new ones would reduce the cost of hiring the compactors by R34m.
Only three of the seven new trucks are operating, two have been allocated to the Addo Road depot in Motherwell and one to the Cuyler depot in Kariega.
“The remaining four trucks were delivered on January 30 2025 and are in the process of being branded before they are deployed for service delivery operations.
“While purchasing new refuse compaction vehicles, the intention was to refurbish from the old that can be reused.
“The committee is reminded of the fact that there were 15 refuse compactors which were identified to be mechanically sound [only required tyres to be back on the road] at the time of site visit to waste depots and Deal Party Automotive,” Mvunelwa wrote.
Public health political head Thsonono Buyeye said the report had been deferred for officials from the department and fleet management to conduct an extensive assessment of the fleet to determine which of them were worth refurbishing.
“An initial assessment was done and the officials identified nine trucks that can still be repaired, and now they are saying give us money to do the work,” Buyeye said.
“We really can’t scrap all 58 trucks. A 2017 vehicle is regarded as new, those are specialised trucks that cost the city a fortune for us to just throw them away.
“The concern in the meeting is the amount required to fix them is too steep, I even suggested that we drop the number to five trucks to reduce the figure.
“I also said perhaps we can take parts from other broken trucks to refurbish the nine as another means to cut the costs.”
Buyeye said the officials would assess whether the trucks were worth repairing when comparing their age and what was required to be refurbished as well as the cost, and a report would be tabled at the next committee meeting.
DA councillor Vernon Boggenpoel said the party was against spending R23m to repair old trucks instead of buying new ones.
“Some of the 58 trucks include those that we were told only needed tyres and we had requested R2.5m for the purchase of tyres, but we still haven’t received feedback about whether we got the money and what happened to it if we did.
“Now they want to spend R1.6m each on two of the nine trucks, and more than R2.2m on the rest.
“Some of the trucks were bought in 2005. It doesn’t make sense for us to spend such a huge an amount of money to fix the nine trucks while we spent R30m to purchase new ones.
“We will not agree with this even if the item returns in the next meeting,” Boggenpoel said.
The Herald
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