Pretoria - Members of the Gauteng Association of Suppliers and Small Businesses have called on the national police to look into the workings of the supply chain management services of the police for alleged corruption and sidelining of small companies.
This as the handful of Small, Medium and Micro enterprises (SMME) owners gathered outside the South African Police Service (SAPS) Silverton headquarters in Tshwane earlier today to protest the slow death of their businesses in the province.
Richard Ndlebe, a supplier working around Gauteng said their small businesses were facing extinction since Wesbank was awarded the tender to maintain government vehicles.
Ndlebe said what upset the business owners, some of whom had been working with the SAPS supply chain management for close to 10 years, was that the decision was taken without any consultations with all the stakeholders involved or affected by the decision.
He said things were so bad that many of the small businesses had hardly gotten any cars in for repairs in the past two months.
"Enough is enough they have been playing with us as small businesses even though the president highlighted the need for small businesses to grow, instead we are falling down the drain."
"We need the head of the supply chain management to understand that we are not happy about these decisions because we should have, at the very least been consulted because we rely on contract work from the government for our livelihoods."
Ndlebe said they also suspected an element of corruption existed as some companies were now getting 15 cars in for repairs whilst it's still unclear as to how and when jobs were now being allocated.
"We call on the minister of police to come and find out what is happening here because we've been rendering our services to the SAPS for more than 10 years fixing their vehicles without any problems and now this."
Sandi Miya, the owner of Miya Gearbox & Diff, who alleged he had been working with the SAPS for two years said many of the business owners had tried repeatedly to get in touch with Wesbank or someone from SAPS to clarify the new system, but to no avail.
Miya said normally his company received three to four cars to repair but he was yet to get anything in the past month.
"I had employed 9 people and I've already had to lay off our admin assistant due to no new jobs. The remaining staff know that once we complete our last jobs they too will be out of jobs and I will be back to job hunting."
Police spokesperson Brigadier Vish Naidoo said the group's memorandum had been received on behalf of the Divisional Commissioner of Supply Chain Management and the office would study and respond to the demands in due course.
Pretoria News