The Executive Mayor of JB Marks Local Municipality in Potchefstroom in the North West Province, Councillor Gaba Thithiba Ka Qhele, handed over three of the seven new trucks bought by the municipality at a cost of R19.4 million to the Department of Community Services on Tuesday. The trucks were procured to accelerate service delivery in both Tlokwe and Ventersdorp Regions of the municipality.
During the handover, Ka Qhele was with members of the Municipal Council, as the handover happened immediately after the last council meeting of the year at JB Marks council offices. Ka Qhele handed over two Tipper Trucks and one skip loader, two refuse removal trucks, one bulldozer truck, and one excavator that are expected to be delivered to the municipality in January 2024.
He said they are happy about the fleet that they are receiving in their quest to accelerate and attend to challenges of service delivery, stating that the two Tipper Trucks have come at a time of their campaign of cleaning illegal dumpings across JB Marks. He said he hoped that they will be helpful as this is part of their initiative as the municipality to make sure that they bring necessary tools of trade to strengthen service delivery to residents of JB Marks.
"The municipality has a total of eight refuse trucks, and we now we have the addition of two new refuse trucks that will help us in our efforts to make sure that we do away with the behaviour of outsourcing because it is not cost-effective for us and we don't have the money to pay service providers," he said.
JB Marks has eight refuse trucks, and three trucks were sent to the Ventersdorp region, but currently, only one truck is working and the other two are being taken for maintenance, leaving the Ventersdorp region with one refuse truck.
"We pick up breakdowns of trucks from time to time, which gives us a huge challenge of collecting refuse while they are taken to workshops or to be maintained. We are forced to outsource so that we can be able to render services to our communities, and this yellow fleet is our way of becoming dependent on our fleet of trucks," Ka Qhele said.
He added that they have realized that in some areas there is a collusion between the municipal workforce and the external workforce where some of their equipment is deliberately tampered with, indicating that such activities are some of the economic sabotage in their Municipality. He said they are happy with the decision taken by President Cyril Ramaphosa of the country to deploy more than 300 soldiers in the Dr. Kenneth Kaunda District to deal with economic sabotage and other activities.
Ka Qhele had two sessions with the deployed soldiers last week and again on Tuesday to understand their scope He said part of the SA National Defence Force work is to deal with deliberate sabotage that includes foreign materials thrown directly into sewer lines, deliberate closure of water meters where certain sections could not get water, as well as cable theft, happening weekly in the Ventersdorp region. He said currently these their main economic sabotages they are facing in JB Marks, includes llegal mining activities happening within the district.
