The Metsimaholo Local Municipality has acquired a fleet of trucks and construction vehicles to the tune of R10.5-million in an effort to strengthen service delivery.

The vehicles include three cherry pickers, two rubbish trucks as well as the TLB front and end loader.

Metsimaholo Local Municipality mayor, Brutus Mahlaku, said the municipality had been operating with old vehicles some of which were bought in the 1970s. He said the municipality will procure new vehicles for use in areas such as Refengkgotso.

“This is just the introduction of what will be happening this year. We will be bringing in new vehicles to accelerate service delivery to our residents and to all areas that need us to provide services. You have witnessed that we are indeed serious about service delivery. We bought three cherry pickers; street lights and trees that are growing taller will be well managed with using such vehicles.

“We also bought two rubbish trucks for Deneysville and Oranjeville areas. The TLB front and end loader will help at the cemeteries and at the illegal dumping sides. We are expecting two compact trucks and two sewer trucks to help the two areas which are still using the septic tanks. These outstanding vehicles will arrive in our region within a short space of time and we believe that they will please our communities,” said Mahlaku.

Mahlaku said the municipality has stabilised its finances and is in a good financial position to improve service delivery.

 “Our financial situation is stable and we are not bankrupt like many people say. I must assure all our communities that we are on track. We agreed with all the departments of the municipality that we will upscale service delivery.

“We are strengthening two departments which will be under one umbrella; technical services which includes electrical, roads, mechanical and water. Another department is social services which is responsible for cleansing, cemeteries and parks.”

He said rumours that the municipality was bankrupt were malicious and politically motivated.

“There are people who continue to feed our residents with lies that we don’t have money, but we didn’t have a challenge to spend about R12-million on paying the salaries of our workers. We do not owe our creditors and are doing our best to direct more money towards things that attract investors.

“So I don’t understand why people would say we do not have money and I wish to announce that our provincial government has given us R47-million for infrastructure development.”

Mahlaku said municipality will ensure that it repays the entire loan it got from the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA) to buy the trucks.

“We are proud that we can get a loan from DBSA while other institution of government cannot be loaned and with our excellent financial track record we qualified for the loan. Remember we moved from getting a disclaimer from the auditor general and now we received a qualified audit opinion.”