The Western Cape’s Government Motor Transport (GMT) Trading Entity procured 110 new BMW cars at the end of 2022 which were to be put in service by all three spheres of government, but have actually been motionless and gathering dust for a large part of 2023.
Around 50 of the vehicles are parked in an outside lot at the Gene Louw Traffic College in Brackenfell while the remaining 60 are in a GMT-owned parking garage in Maitland.
Each vehicle appears to be a 3 Series sedan which had a price of approximately R850,000 towards the end of 2022, the ANC provincial caucus confirmed to EWN.
This puts the combined value of the 110 BMWs at R93.5 million.
“The vehicles were procured towards the end of 2022 from the National RT57 State contract, which is used by all three spheres of government, to replace the existing, ageing fleet and to meet added transport demands,” said the GMT department.
“[GMT] chose to procure the vehicles before the end of the 2022 calendar year in order to avoid the annual price increases that came into effect in the new year.”
The reason for the delay in deploying the cars is a lengthy tender process for acquiring the necessary equipment that will make the sedans fit for police use.
To prepare the vehicles for service, the SAPS must install reflective markings and branding, emergency lights and sirens, and in-vehicle technology such as number plate recognition camera solutions for traffic law enforcement purposes.
The upgrades must be approved by the manufacturer to retain the vehicle’s warranty, though, and BMW has advised the department that certain components which were approved for previous-generation models would no longer meet its standards on the new vehicles.
“This required of GMT to embark on a tender process to procure the new fittings, rather than risk losing the warranty,” said the entity.
“While this delay was unforeseen and unfortunate, the decision to fit the correct equipment, after following the prescribed tender process, cannot be faulted.”
21% of South Africa’s police cars are broken
The news of the out-of-service BMW cars in the Western Cape comes at a time when an average of 21% of the national police force is sitting without vehicles to respond to incidents or distressed citizens.
Police minister Bheki Cele in a parliamentary Q&A revealed that between 13.65% and 26.87% of all police cars in the country are “not operational” – depending on the province.
In the Western Cape specifically, it ranks sixth out of nine with 17.26% of its law enforcement vehicles not running at present.
“These distressing statistics echo the desperate cries from communities across South Africa who say that they never see an SAPS vehicle,” said Democratic Alliance MP Andrew Whitfield.
“South Africans have complained to the DA that response times from SAPS are unacceptably slow and that in many cases SAPS never arrives.”
In view of these alarming figures, trade union Cosatu and opposition party ANC have called on the Western Cape government to get the stationary vehicles equipped with the necessary upgrades and into service with haste.
“We are calling on the Premier and the MEC to be transparent to the residents of the Western Cape about the circumstances around this, intended use of these vehicles, and steps to be taken to deal with the responsible persons,” said Cosatu.
Join the discussion