Durban - The eThekwini Municipality has in three years splurged R48.5 million on marketing and communication for the multibillion rand GO!Durban public transport system that has been hampered by a series of disruptions from the taxi industry.
The city is set to spend another R51.5 million over three years for the campaign, run by the one of South Africa’s leading advertising agencies, Ogilvy & Mather South Africa, after the company met the benchmarks agreed on in the first three years.
During the total six years of the contract, Ogilvy will rake in close to R17m a year.
The contract has raised the ire of opposition parties who want to know why the city outsourced the service when it has a fully-fledged communications department.
A schedule of tender contracts in March states that Ogilvy was awarded a “marketing, branding and communication services (contract) for the new Integrated Rapid Public Transport Network (IRPTN) within eThekwini”.
Advertising the initial tender in August 2012, the city said it was necessitated by the “scale” and “complexity” of the project. The period would “ensure that objectives of the project are realised”.
eThekwini’s communications department provides public relations, graphic design, media liaison and web services. It consists of a team of close to 20 writers and communication officers, including management, but excluding interns.
The municipality has for weeks been bleeding thousands of rand - about R600 000 a day - on the GO!Durban project, due to work being shut down by taxi operators who are demanding business in the development.
DA provincial and eThekwini caucus leader Zwakele Mncwango said: “The municipality needs to decide whether we outsource this service or not. There’s no use having a useless communication department. The question is: Why are we employing people when they’ll be useless?”
He said it had become a trend that a huge budget was allocated to communication in the run-up to elections. “Every time we get close to elections, there are massive amounts of money allocated for communication. This money is just for electioneering,” he said.
GO!Durban should be championed by councillors, he said.
His sentiments were echoed by IFP councillor Mdu Nkosi, who said he would be requesting the city’s integrity and investigations unit to probe the matter. He said he feared that ratepayers’ funds would be abused.
Responding, municipal spokesperson Thulani Mbatha suggested that the city’s communication department did not have the necessary required skills when the contract was awarded.
“Since that period the Communications Unit has been beefed-up by appointing strong leadership, attracting the necessary skills to capacitate the unit,” he said.
A “fully-fledged” media office had also been established. The media office “has successfully packaged and executed a robust communications strategy”.
Ogilvy spokesperson Mark Zeller, said the company’s tender submission had been valued at just over R151 million.
This was later reduced to R100 million after negotiations with the city.
He said the second phase was subject to delivery of “stringent key performance benchmarks set by the city”, which had been met.
It was unclear what the benchmarks were.
This was confirmed by Mbatha.
He added that Ogilvy had driven events such as the GO!Durban brand launch, the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the taxi industry, the launch of the Non-Motorised Transport programme, an Empowerment Charter workshop and conference.
“A public transport drivers’ summit, the launch of GO!Durban Cycle Academy, the launch of Dial-A-Ride buses for people with disabilities, various city events such as the Sustainable Living Expo, various media conferences, and support for the 11 work streams of the GO!Durban programme such as infrastructure,” were also delivered.
Among other work carried out or driven by Ogilvy were the Muvo card (moving all Durban Transport users from coupons to the Muvo Smart Card), above-the-line advertising with radio, billboards, print advertising as well as below-the-line advertising such as newsletters, flyers, pamphlets, brochures and other collateral and including all branding and publicity.
The Mercury