Hino South Africa has completed an order for 33 mobile offices for the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Home Affairs. The last units were shipped in mid-February.
Unique bodies were built by SA Van Conversions/Bubhezi and mounted on Hino 300 816 chassis/cabs. A group of KZN Home Affairs officials involved in the project visited the Hino assembly plant in Prospecton, near Durban, in December for a progress report and to tour the Hino truck assembly plant.
The fully equipped mobile offices will service many of KZN’s most remote rural areas. The bodies are mounted on Hino 300 816 chassis-cabs which are powered by a 4-litre turbo-diesel engine driving the rear wheels through a 6-speed automatic transmission.
The office bodies were constructed by SA Van Conversions/Bubhezi, located in Pinetown, KZN. The company, which operates in conjunction with Transpec, another KZN body builder, has a long record of successful conversions of vans and chassis-cabs to ambulances, mobile laboratories, mobile offices, and taxis and has been involved with Toyota SA Motors and Hino SA in previous projects.
“The Hino 300’s low average fuel consumption of approximately 15-18 l/100km and its record for reliability and durability were significant factors in the decision by Home Affairs to buy our made-in-KZN Hino 300 trucks for their mobile offices,” commented Mengas Mokoena, Hino SA’s Tender and Fleet Sales Manager.
“Our core responsibility at KZN Home Affairs is to ensure that every South African citizen in our province has access to our services, but we are aware that our footprint and presence in some of the far-flung and remote areas of the province needs to be improved,” explained Cyril Mncwabe, KZN Home Affairs’ Provincial Manager.
“We see these Hino-based mobile offices as an effective solution to serving citizens who previously had great difficulty getting to Home Affairs offices in the cities. There was a high level of excitement in our group when we visited the Hino plant and saw the trucks being assembled and look forward to putting them into the field as soon as possible,” added Mncwabe.
