By Nangamso Mabindla

The Eastern Cape Department of Transport has officially awarded a R731-million contract to FleetAfrica Eastern Cape to manage government vehicles.

Warren Thompson, managing director of FleetAfrica, said his company had bought 3 000 government vehicles and would assume full responsibility for the vehicles.

"We have also assumed ownership and operation of the vehicles that will be used by the provincial government," Thompson said.

The contract will cost the government an estimated R146-million a year over five years.

"The contract is aimed at bringing controlled professionalism into managing the 3 000-strong government vehicle fleet," Buffalo City Councillor Zintle Peter said at the official awarding of the contract in Bisho last week.

Peter said outsourcing was part of the government's programme to redress the imbalances of the past. The FleetAfrica initiative would help empower women as they were represented on the board of the new service provider.

A crucial aspect in making the award was that it "not only represents a change in management system, but it conforms to the demographics of our area", Peter said.

The councillor praised Dennis Neer, the province's MEC for Transport, for the department's role in empowering previously disadvantaged individuals.

"This contract will promote effective and efficient use of our resources throughout the province," Peter said. "We want to congratulate the Department of Transport for embracing the soul of black economic empowerment and leading the way."

The Buffalo City Municipality was fully behind the project, Peter added, as it would have a ripple effect.

Peter said the initiative should not simply be a change on paper, but should be "a workable and practical way in achieving grassroots black economic empowerment". To be successful, black economic empowerment needed to push back the frontiers of poverty, create jobs and empower formerly marginalised people, he said.

FleetAfrica is a company formed between FleetAfrica Eastern Cape and Kei Fleet Solutions, an empowerment company based in the Eastern Cape.

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