Cops deny doing audit on grounded Chevvies

POLICE and Barden Motors have given conflicting reports on a purported countrywide audit of NamPol’s fleet of Chevrolet vehicles which are off the road.

Kano Smith, Managing Director of Barden Motors, the American company dealing mainly in General Motors (GM) vehicles, said his company and the Police had launched a joint assessment in March to determine the number of “Police Chevvies” currently grounded, “with a view of getting them back on road”. But head of the Police’s Public Relations Unit, Deputy Commissioner Hophni Hamufungu, strongly denied the force’s involvement in the “audit”.”Definitely we are not involved in any undertaking of that kind,” Hamufungu said.”The Police do not need to go out to get those statistics.We can just access them through our system.”According to Smith, Barden Motors met Home Affairs Minister Jerry Ekandjo earlier this year to inform him that the company would not be servicing Chevrolet vehicles in the near future.It was then, Smith said, that Barden Motors proposed a countrywide audit of all grounded Chevrolet vehicles – to establish their exact problems, as well as the cost and time of fixing them.”There is an agreement in principle between GM, Barden Motors and the [Namibian] Government to get all these vehicles on the road,” Smith told The Namibian in March.”It’s not good for GM to see so many of their vehicles off the road, hence they have a vested interest to ensure that these vehicles are up and running.”Government became the single biggest client of Barden International in southern Africa in 1998 when it paid hundreds of millions of dollars for a fleet of over 800 Chevrolet vehicles, consisting of station wagons, pick-ups, trucks and buses.A large number of these vehicles have been grounded for several years in Windhoek and at garages around the country allegedly because of a lack of spare parts.But the Barden MD insisted that the problem of spare parts was long solved in 2001, and lamented budgetary constraints on the side of Government.Information about the purported countrywide audit to get the Barden vehicles back on the road emerged as Barden Motors prepares to wind up its operations in Namibia.The company is apparently poised for a 100 per cent takeover by a relatively unknown local black empowerment venture, Namibia Motors, and the deal is expected to be finalised soon.Smith was reluctant to reveal why Barden Motors was selling its business in Namibia, saying the move was necessitated by purely business principles.Media reports early this year suggested that Barden Motors was about to lose the right to sell and service GM vehicles in Namibia to Auas Delta.The United States-based GM has become the majority shareholders of Delta Motors South Africa, the manufacturers of Isuzu, Opel and Suzuki vehicles distributed by Auas Delta in Namibia.But head of the Police’s Public Relations Unit, Deputy Commissioner Hophni Hamufungu, strongly denied the force’s involvement in the “audit”.”Definitely we are not involved in any undertaking of that kind,” Hamufungu said.”The Police do not need to go out to get those statistics.We can just access them through our system.”According to Smith, Barden Motors met Home Affairs Minister Jerry Ekandjo earlier this year to inform him that the company would not be servicing Chevrolet vehicles in the near future.It was then, Smith said, that Barden Motors proposed a countrywide audit of all grounded Chevrolet vehicles – to establish their exact problems, as well as the cost and time of fixing them.”There is an agreement in principle between GM, Barden Motors and the [Namibian] Government to get all these vehicles on the road,” Smith told The Namibian in March.”It’s not good for GM to see so many of their vehicles off the road, hence they have a vested interest to ensure that these vehicles are up and running.”Government became the single biggest client of Barden International in southern Africa in 1998 when it paid hundreds of millions of dollars for a fleet of over 800 Chevrolet vehicles, consisting of station wagons, pick-ups, trucks and buses.A large number of these vehicles have been grounded for several years in Windhoek and at garages around the country allegedly because of a lack of spare parts.But the Barden MD insisted that the problem of spare parts was long solved in 2001, and lamented budgetary constraints on the side of Government.Information about the purported countrywide audit to get the Barden vehicles back on the road emerged as Barden Motors prepares to wind up its operations in Namibia.The company is apparently poised for a 100 per cent takeover by a relatively unknown local black empowerment venture, Namibia Motors, and the deal is expected to be finalised soon.Smith was reluctant to reveal why Barden Motors was selling its business in Namibia, saying the move was necessitated by purely business principles.Media reports early this year suggested that Barden Motors was about to lose the right to sell and service GM vehicles in Namibia to Auas Delta.The United States-based GM has become the majority shareholders of Delta Motors South Africa, the manufacturers of Isuzu, Opel and Suzuki vehicles distributed by Auas Delta in Namibia.