Masilonyana municipality has almost no essential service delivery vehicles in full working order

Issued by Benjamin Molahloe – DA Masilonyana Councillor
11 May 2022 in Press Statements

The DA can reveal today that the Municipality of Masilonyana has only one working vehicle in its fleet for essential service delivery.

This was confirmed by the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, in response to a parliamentary question by the DA Member of Parliament for Masilonyana, George Michalakis.

Masilonyana Municipality has only five vehicles in its so-called yellow fleet which is essential for the delivery of services. Of these five,  four are in for repairs. The only working vehicle is a tractor-loader-backhoe (TLB) to serve the four towns of Winburg, Theunissen, Brandfort and Verkeerdevlei.

The municipality currently has no cherry picker to fix streetlights and other electrical problems, no grader for the scraping of gravel roads, no other tractors, tipper trucks or front loaders.

Without a fully functional yellow fleet, municipal staff are dormant and service delivery is standing still.

Two 2014 model graders with odometer readings of just 1 698 km and 4 477 km are in for repairs, according to the parliamentary reply. Similarly, two cherry pickers (one a 2004 model with an odometer reading of 133 495 km and another 2013 model with an odometer reading of 134 634 km) are both in for repairs as well.

The TLB is a 2013 model with 18 696 km on the clock and is in a condition which the municipality describes as “fair”.

Under these conditions, it is no wonder basic services within the municipality are virtually no existent. The municipality does not have the cash flow and financial discipline to turn this dire situation around.

With services continuing to decline, we will not be able to turn around the local economy to attract investment and create jobs.

I will write to the Mayor, Dimakatso Modise, to demand the municipality to apply for a Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) and a full, free, assessments of the fleet conducted by the provincial department of Police, Roads and Transport (DPRT) as further assistance from the provincial department in order to get the municipality working again.