A court order forced 670 vehicles to return to the Tshwane metro’s fleet depot by 09:00 on Friday; otherwise, they would be remotely switched off and blocked from refuelling.

This recall was, however, part of the metro’s “de-fleeting” process, which has been underway for the past couple of months.

“The metro has been returning vehicles as their leases expired,” said Tshwane mayoral spokesperson Sipho Stuurman.

“As they expire, the service providers come and take them. Our priority now is to de-fleet and start getting our vehicles owned outright.”

The recall came following a dispute heard in court on Tuesday between Absa Vehicle Management Solutions (Pty) Limited and Alliance Fleet (Moipone) (Pty) Limited, according to Stuurman.

“The bank financing the supplier obtained a court interdict against the supplier to return the vehicles.”

Stuurman said the urgent rush for officials to return the vehicles was to comply with the court order.

“These vehicles had already been de-fleeted as the leases had expired on a rolling basis from August 2021.”

The vehicles were costing the Tshwane metro about R5,7m per month.

2. Some of the fleet vehicles had to be returned already in December when the lease contract expired with the supplier. The City further demanded that the supplier take back their vehicles while we buy our own.

— Sipho Stuurman (@Sipho_Stuurman) July 15, 2022

“We assume the supplier failed to make payments after the contract ended with Tshwane,” said Stuurman.

Stuurman said the metro was not involved in the so-called “repossession” of the vehicles as the matter was between the bank and fleet supplier.

He said Tshwane began acquiring its own vehicles in 2018 in anticipation of these leases ending in 2021.

“Through this programme, Tshwane has bought outright a total of 917 Category A vehicles to date from 2018.”

Stuurman said R100-million had been allocated for the current financial year to continue the programme, which was aimed at cutting down excess fleet costs by acquiring the metro’s own vehicles.

3. The bank financing the supplier obtained a court inderdict against the supplier to remove and returm the vehicles (This is between the bank and supplier NOT Tshwane. We assume the supplier failed to make payments after the contract ended with Tshwane)

— Sipho Stuurman (@Sipho_Stuurman) July 15, 2022

“While we are busy getting new vehicles, we have diverted vehicles from some departments to ensure that service delivery that needs vehicles continues.”

Tshwane outsourced a large part of its fleet services through service providers.

“A site visit to the metro’s four major fleet workshops played a pivotal role in implementing a new fleet management strategy,” said corporate and shared services MMC Kingsley Wakelin.

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Wakelin said the new strategy would reduce annual leasing costs from R400-million to around R120-million.

“This administration is serious about cutting unnecessary and expensive costs.”

In 2016, the metro awarded fleet contracts to three service providers, namely Moipone Group of Companies (Moipone), Fleet Africa and Fleetmaticks (Talis Fleet).

These vehicles included anything from waste management vehicles to ambulances and firefighting vehicles.