MORE than 50 new vehicles have been purchased over the past four years to strengthen Kouga Municipality’s fleet.
Among the latest acquisitions are five brand new bakkies for the municipality’s Electrical section.
“The municipal fleet was in complete disrepair when we took over the Council in 2016,” said Executive Mayor, Horatio Hendricks.
“At the time only 4% of the vehicles were operational. Four years later we can proudly say that 98% of the fleet is in working order, enabling staff to get where they need to go to keep Kouga serviced.”
Acting Fleet Manager, Nico Gouws, handed over the branded vehicles to Electrical Services manager Theo Madatt and his team on Friday.
Also at the handover was Kouga Infrastructure and Engineering Portfolio Councillor, Bryan Dhludhlu, who welcomed the extra wheels for the section.
“It is essential that our Electrical team has reliable transport as they have to travel across Kouga to do new installations, maintenance or repairs,” he said.
“They used to rely on 12 bakkies, of which two were constantly breaking down.
“The new bakkies will enable them to respond to call-outs sooner and improve this service to communities.”
Kouga Municipality’s Electrical section is responsible for the network in Jeffreys Bay, Humansdorp and the greater St Francis area.
“Eskom and Nelson Mandela Bay are responsible for the supply in Hankey, Patensie, Loerie and Thornhill, but the Kouga team also looks after the electrical requirements of all municipal buildings’ facilities and high mast lights in those areas,” he said.
He said the municipality’s Fleet section had also refurbished three old cherry pickers for the Electrical team.
“The cherry pickers are now as good as new. This has greatly helped to improve the response time for electrical faults.”
