Black-owned garages say govt fleet repair work slowing

A fresh storm has erupted over the tender to maintain and repair the government fleet, with an association of black-owned warehouses claiming members have seen business dwindle since a new supplier was appointed.

However, National Treasury, which is responsible for the tender, says the transfer of the tender from WesBank to Afrirent Holdings is still recent and that any complaints would be premature.

Still, James Ngubeni, chairperson of the Motor Industry Federation of Associations (MIFA), says the transfer of the contract — which he already had issues with under WesBank — went from bad to worse after Afrirent took over in June.

“Due to the number of complaints from associations and departments, Treasury, which is the custodian of the RT46, decided not to award the contract to WesBank. The winner was Afrirent, who was announced last year. As the winner of the RT46 tender contract, it is ending at the end of March. They said they will extend it up until the end of June, so at least they’ve got about six months. Afrirent had six months to prepare itself for the new contract.”

Category C, on-board cameras and driver management, handled by Mix Telematics;

Category D, vehicle condition, booking and fine management, handled by Fleet Sync; and

Ngubeni said Category A had a legacy backlog of about 20,000 vehicles that needed maintenance and repair; historically disadvantaged persons (HDI) in the system were not receiving vehicles to work on.

“If you used to get about six cars, now you’re getting one, and some have got zero. Now, on the first of July, we were told by Afrirent that WesBank actually gave them a backlog of about 20,000 jobs, which was inherited by Afrirent from WesBank.”

He said that before Afrirent started the contract on July 1, none of the merchants from all associations had a merchant code, which is given to a merchant supplying in Category A after passing inspection. “Then they began to issue merchant codes on the eve, after I sent an email to Afrirent, [where] I copied Treasury and Scopa [the parliament’s standing committee on public accounts]. Then they reacted to my email.

“Now, they issued merchant codes to everyone on that day, on the 30th, up until July 1. But the biggest mistake they’ve [made is that] they even issued merchant codes to merchants that were not inspected.”

WesBank told Business Times its contract to provide fleet management services to government under the RT46 Transversal contract concluded on June 30 2026, in line with the agreed transition process, referring questions to Afrirent.

Afrirent told Business Times that many merchants anticipated an automatic transition of their merchant profiles from the previous service provider, WesBank, to Afrirent.

“The new tender advertised by National Treasury introduced mandatory contractual obligations that require all merchants to be thoroughly vetted, registered on the Central Supplier Database (CSD), and submit to inspection of their physical premises to safeguard public assets and uphold service standards.