The Rand West City Local Municipality (RWCLM) has been dealt another blow and has had a fleet of 29 specialised waste collection vehicles attached by the Sheriff of the court.
This comes after the service provider appointed to render waste collection services to the municipality’s jurisdictional areas, failed not only in its duty to collect the waste but also failed to pay for the vehicle finance on the fleet.
Of these 29 vehicles attached, 17 have been physically removed from the municipality’s premises and only 12 remain.
The 17 vehicles are made up of nine waste compactor trucks, one excavator, one TLB, four MPR 400 crew cabs, one cherry picker, and one skip loader.
However, of the remaining 12, none of them can be utilised pending outcomes of the legal matter – thus leaving the municipality with minimal resources from its previous fleet to render the service.
According to RWCLM spokesperson Phillip Montshiwa, the municipality was up to date with its payments to the service provider but the service provider didn’t keep to its end of the deal.
“The municipality appointed a service provider for the provision of a specialised fleet and upheld its obligations in terms of the agreement about payments. Unbeknown to the municipality, the service provider did not keep up with its payments to its financiers and as a result, the municipality found itself embroiled in litigation between the service provider and its financiers. The same service provider failed to uphold its performance obligations to the municipality as well as its financiers, even after the court issued an order, instructing them to pay their financiers,” said Montshiwa.
He added that on February 12, the Sheriff executed an order of the court, which permitted the return of the vehicles to the financiers.
“So far, 29 vehicles have been surrendered to the Sheriff and this is what prompts this communication. The municipality has already initiated plans to mitigate the possible interruption and we are working towards limiting the extent of all or any interruption of services by securing a replacement fleet (within the provision of the law). Our communication is intended to inform all our stakeholders of the possibility of interruption of services in the unlikely event that there is any delay in the implementation of the contingency measures,” said Montshiwa.
He added that as a short-term goal, the municipality plans to utilise the services of existing contracts within the municipality and repair its salvageable fleet.
It also intends on appointing a service provider for a full maintenance lease – as part of its long-term goal.
Meanwhile, the municipality has decided to institute legal proceedings against the service provider for failure to perform and recover public funds that were and are still to be disbursed as a result of the non-performance.
