MMC for corporate services in Nelson Mandela Bay, Khusta Jack, from the Abantu Integrity Movement, said on Thursday evening that he believed the phone lines would be restored in the next “36 hours, all things being equal”. (Photo: Deon Ferreira) 
The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality’s call centre and office lines remained offline on Thursday due to a billing dispute with mobile network operator MTN.
Read more: No cellphones, no call centre for a month — Nelson Mandela Bay metro’s contract drama
The MMC for corporate services, Khusta Jack, from the Abantu Integrity Movement, said on Thursday evening that he believed the lines would be restored in the next “36 hours, all things being equal”.
The phone lines have been out of service for a month. Nelson Mandela Bay has three call centres, including two for electricity and water that were seemingly established without permission from the council, it was said in a city council meeting last month. The third call centre, the “official” call centre, dropped close to 4,000 calls a year before this outage.
To compound the issue, the metro is switching from Vodacom to Telkom for officials’ cellphones. This means that officials now have different cellphone numbers, which were not distributed to city councillors.
As a result, members of the public can’t complain about services not being delivered, and councillors can’t follow up with officials about unresolved service delivery complaints.
The sole communication from the metro’s communication staff about the issue was a message from communications director Sithembiso Soyaya saying that he had a new phone, but had lost all his former messages.
Read more: Nelson Mandela Bay metro runs up a loss of R1.58bn — and hasn’t even paid its phone bill
Email addresses
Outraged by the ongoing situation, the Democratic Alliance’s mayoral candidate for next year’s local government elections, Retief Odendaal, on Thursday afternoon published the email addresses of the mayor and all the senior directors in the metro so the public can email their complaints.
“Until such time as Mayor Babalwa Lobishe fixes the service delivery call centre (0800 20 50 50), which has been offline for almost a month, residents should submit their service delivery issues directly to the Mayor’s Office at: mayor@mandelametro.gov.za and pamayor@mandelametro.gov.za,” Odendaal wrote on Facebook, where he has 43,000 followers.
“Please also CC the following officials: City Manager at cm@mandelametro.gov.za; Acting ED [executive director]: Infrastructure and Engineering at bmartin@mandelametro.gov.za; Acting ED: Electricity and Energy at blamour@mandelametro.gov.za and Acting ED: Corporate Services at nxhego@mandelametro.gov.za.”
His Facebook post continued: “At yesterday’s Special Council Meeting, the Mayor was quick to blame departments about ongoing municipal phone line issues, the very same departments that operate under her watch. This bizarre deflection seems to suggest that the Mayor is unaware of her own legislated executive authority.
“Section 56 of the Municipal Structures Act outlines the functions and powers of the executive mayor. Specifically, Section 56(3)(e) states: ‘The executive mayor, in performing the duties of office, must oversee the provision of services to communities in the municipality in a sustainable manner.’
“The mayor must step up and do what is required to get the call centre working again. Until then, it is her direct responsibility to oversee provision of services to residents.
“If the call centre is not operational within the next 7 days, we will be forced to provide further contact information to ensure that residents are able to report their service delivery complaints.”
Serious inefficiencies
The African Christian Democratic Party’s Lance Grootboom said the disputed bill was for more than R7-million and had not yet been resolved.
“This failure underscores serious inefficiencies within Corporate Services and Budget & Treasury, compounded by a lack of oversight from the executive mayor, who continues to shift blame instead of holding the acting city manager and departmental officials accountable,” said Grootboom.
“MMC Khusta Jack has failed to expedite a resolution, while MMC Khanya Ngqisha, responsible for Budget & Treasury, has delayed action and neglected to intervene effectively. Both should have actively monitored the contract and taken decisive steps to prevent payment delays, ensuring that phone lines remained operational and municipal services continued uninterrupted.
“The result is a severe disruption of service delivery, leaving residents, councillors and other departments in the municipality stranded and frustrated.”
He said he hoped the new acting city manager would take immediate action to hold those responsible accountable.
At a council meeting on Wednesday, outgoing city manager Ted Pillay said nine months were left on the city’s contract, so there was “time to sort it out”.
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/DSC_1064-copy.jpg "Ted Pillay. (Photo: Deon Ferreira)")
He said he had instructed that the money be paid and was promised that the lines would be reconnected.
The MMC for corporate services, Jack, said the differences between the metro and MTN had been “ironed out”, but payment had not yet been made.
“Once payment has been made, the lines will be restored,” he said. “I estimate it will be in the next 36 hours.”
The CEO of the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber, Denise van Huyssteen, said it was completely unacceptable that the municipality’s call centre was not operational.
“This further exacerbates the already poor situation where leaks, potholes, streetlights and other basic issues are not being addressed. We urge the newly appointed acting city manager to take decisive and quick action to address the urgent matter, as well as the huge backlog of infrastructure maintenance issues,” she said.
At 6pm on Thursday the phone lines were still not working. DM