He made this announcement on Wednesday at the unveiling a fleet of new service vehicles which includes 48 ambulances, nine paramedic response cars and nine fire fighting vehicles to boost emergency services in the city.
The security services in Ekurhuleni also received an injection of 120 Metro Police cars which have been allocated to the SWAT, dog, security, public order policing, community liaison, by-law enforcement units and all EMPD precincts in the city.
Gauteng MEC for Health and Social Development Hope Papo commended Ekurhuleni for taking the initiative to purchase the ambulances, thus complimenting the service provided by the provincial government.
“We thank you for taking it upon yourselves to improve health services in your city. As the Gauteng Department of Health, we will also be allocating a couple of obstetric ambulances to all municipalities in the province, which will cater only for women giving birth,” said Papo, as he spoke at the event held at the Sam Ntuli Stadium in Thokoza.
The metro has taken this step to alleviate delays in service delivery due to constraints presented by ageing vehicles. It has procured over 600 vehicles within its 2012/2013 financial year to the tune of R214 million. This is part of a promise that Clr Gungubele made to residents earlier this year during his State of the City Address when he promised to turn things around where service delivery is concerned.
Mayor Gungubele indicated that beyond getting a new fleet the municipality has also upgraded its emergency call taking centre which has been the subject of public outcries recently.
“The Call Centre remains the most critical priority for the metro hence we have invested approximately R20 million to upgrade the facility, a project which will be completed by the end of this month. Furthermore within the next few weeks we will be advertising an additional 200 posts for call takers.”
The intervention means that the centre will be able to accommodate 50 additional call centre agents on a four-shift system instead of the current 12 agents.
The vehicles, and their values, added to the emergency services fleet are:
- 48 Ambulances: R26 370 512
- 9 Paramedic vehicles: R2 510 037
- 1 water tanker: R6 164 229
- 1 foam tanker: R2 165 663
- 6 rescue pumpers: R7 745 454.
- 1 grass fire unit: R847 556.
- 7 Chev utility bakkie: R976 644.
- 11 Chev sedans: R2 510 037.
The following were added to the EMPD fleet:
- 15 GTI: R4 671, 279.
- 48 Polo Classic Vivo: R7 003 523.
- 30 double cab bakkies: R6 088 641.
- 1 crew cab: R328 712.00
- 4 Renaults: R709 278.00
- 4 Chev Aveos: R514 813.96
- 1 Scania bus: R1 640 362.
- 2 Navaras: R683 730.90
- 3 roll backs: R777 000.00
- 12 BMW: R5 499 777
