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NMB sabotages itself with fuel bungle

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Dear MyPE

Service delivery will grind to a halt in Nelson Mandela Bay due to the Municipality’s inability to timeously finalise its contract with a service provider to provide fuel to the municipal fleet.

The contract with the previous service provider, Masana Petroleum Solutions, expired on 30 October 2018 and was, thereafter, extended on a monthly and six-monthly basis.

The tender was advertised last year and after it was awarded, court action followed before the new service provider was finally appointed.

Masana’s contract was extended for a six-month period until 30 November of this year, but the Metro still has to sign the service level agreement with the new service provider and petrol cards have not even been distributed yet.

Accordingly, the metro fleet has not been able to fill vehicle fuel tanks since 1 December. This will have a catastrophic impact on the Municipality’s ability to attend to electricity and water outages, refuse removal and even on the operation of the Metro Police.

The directorate for Infrastructure and Engineering, the department in charge of this contract, is currently leaderless, without an Executive Director or political head in the form of the Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) for Infrastructure and Engineering.

The Metro was well aware that the contract was to expire at the end of November, but still no emergency measures were put in place to avoid a possible fuel shortage.

I will now write to the acting City Manager requesting feedback on why no plans were made to avoid this disaster and to get a definitive answer on when the new service provider will be able to ensure that there is petrol in the tanks of the municipal fleet.

This is just another example of the ANC-led Coalition of Corruption’s uncaring attitude towards the residents of Nelson Mandela Bay.

The people of this City deserve better. Only the DA, with the assistance of its coalition partners and the residents of the Metro, can take Nelson Mandela Bay forward.

Let’s fix this mess – we have done it before and we can do it again.

Regards

Cllr Masixole Zinto
DA NMB Spokesperson for Infrastructure and Engineering

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