Africa: The Umzinyathi municipality has been made aware of the social media statements made by a person that could not be verified at this point. These statements are detrimental to the parties involved and mislead the public.
Due to load shedding and operational requirements for Nquthu Vantsdrift Water Treatment Works, which is the main plant used for purifying water for Nquthu town, there was an urgent need for a generator for pumping water.
In the past, the municipality used to rent the generators for this costly plant. The two options available were to buy or rent from service providers. The first option was explored, and an award was given to a service provider for R800,000 per month (R9,600,000 per year) for the rental generator.
The awarded service provider failed to source the specified generator, and the purchase order was therefore cancelled. The said reason was the price hike in the market, which made delivery impossible.
The municipality then purchased a generator from Asiziqalele Contractors priced at R5 600 000 exclusive of Value Added Tax (VAT). Hence, the value inclusive of VAT was R6 400,000. This is evident in the document circulated on social media, which was leaked by those intending to cause harm to the municipality.
The price was reasonable for the municipality to take over the generator and own it instead of renting it for R780,000 (R9,360,000 per year). The basis for making this decision was that the generator was new, and the installation and delivery costs were going to be incurred each time a new service provider was appointed to provide the generator on the rental agreement.
This decision was meant to reduce the rental costs of over R9,000,000 per year as the quoted prices were all over R750,000 for the rental option. This ensured stability in the energy requirements for the plant.
The specification of this generator was as follows:
– 1000 KVA PRIME POWER 400V BAUDOUIN GENERATOR
– SOUND ATTENUATED
– WATERPROOF ISD CONTAINER
– 1000L DIESEL TANK
The saving made on this purchase was rerouted to other properties which required generators lesser in size.
Umzinyathi District Municipality encourages the public to utilize the available systems for requesting information or details on events of their interest.