GOVT TO SPEND E600M ON 1 000 CARS

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GOVT TO SPEND E600M ON 1 000 CARS
GOVT TO SPEND E600M ON 1 000 CARS

Africa-Press – Eswatini. In a move to reduce the high cost of expenditure from renting vehicles, government will spend over E600 million to purchase 1 000 vehicles.

The transaction, however, will not be a once-off payment as government has introduced a new financing model that will see it pay in instalments.

Ministry of Public Works and Transport Principal Secretary, Thulani Mkhaliphi, said they would use the lease financing model, meaning they would lease the vehicles and pay for them in instalments until they belonged to government.

This, according to the controlling officer, would be similar to when individuals bought their cars on instalments.

He estimated that the total budget was between E600 and E700 million, which would be spread over three to five years.

Through the budget was yet to be approved, Mkhaliphi said they requested for E150-E200 million for the next financial year and they had been assured of receiving some funds this financial year as there was 100 per cent commitment from all involved.

The decision to purchase a new fleet, according to Mkhaliphi, was necessitated by the fact that it was costly to rent the vehicles.

He said rentals were not for long-term purposes, but for short-term and explained that since government did not have vehicles, they found themselves having to rent cars for long-term periods, which proved to be extremely costly.

“I am not sure how much is spent on renting out cars as it fluctuates, depending on the need. The recent rentals were during the elections and that was too expensive,” Mkhaliphi said.

The ministry, according to the PS, had also obtained the services of a consultant to determine the needs of different ministries in term of vehicles.

He said the next batch of vehicles bought would not be in accordance with the preference of officers, but by the need of that ministry.

“We will not buy GD6s, just because people prefer them. If a person needs a Tazz to deliver documents, then that is the car we will buy. If an agricultural extension officer needs a certain car to manoeuvre their terrain, we will buy that car as determined by the consultant,” he said.

He disclosed that they were at the height of negotiations with the financier, who he said would not be revealed for now.

The ministry last year, through the Eswatini Government Tender Board, invited companies to express interest to supply the government fleet leasing and financing for a period ranging between three and five years.

The principal secretary further stated that they were moving fast to seal the deal with the company.

He said this was in order to ensure that they manage the money needed as the price of cars continued to increase.

Mkhaliphi also explained that government would not purchase the cars, but the service provider would so they could get better deals.

He noted that government did not usually get discounts and prices were sometimes fluctuated, hence the decision to use the service provider to purchase the vehicles.

The PS went on to state that they would assess how the new arrangement goes before adding the number of vehicles.

This process would be culmination of that tender process.

The vehicles would be across the range, and would not be just one model and all ministries would benefit and noted that some would need specialised vehicles, including the ministry of health and the police service.

“If the ministry of health needs ambulances, we will take some of the cars and have them fitted to become exactly what they need. Some of the government cars have reached their usage limit and some were involved in accidents and are too costly to fix.”

Government will be disposing some of the vehicles through an auction.

One such auction was held at Siteki yesterday and another would be held at Nhlangano CTA on January 17.

Mkhaliphi said this was a replacement programme for the fleet of 3 000 government vehicles and explained that previously, they bought the vehicles directly from the budget, but this time it would be different.

During the recent induction for the 12th Parliament, the Principal Planning Officer in the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development, Siphiwe Dlamini, highlighted that government spent a lot on renting vehicles.

She said government spent E1 500 per day renting a car and asked parliamentarians to imagine how much it cost per day when considering the number of vehicles rented.

She suggested that it would be better for government to purchase the vehicles and monitor their use.

Further, she said there should also be an analysis of which cars would be good for conducting government business in terms of durability and maintenance costs, but also taking into account how much it would cost initially.

The issue of car rentals was also raised during the People’s Parliament, where it was stated that government spent millions renting cars.

It was suggested that the prime minister should procure enough vehicles instead of renting.

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