Fourth time’s the charm? Cogta intervenes again in a broken Nelson Mandela Bay

The intervention of the national Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) in Nelson Mandela Bay was met with scepticism by the Coalition of Civil Society, which stated it was the fourth intervention in recent years, with none yielding the desired results.

Cogta assigned a 10-member team in terms of section 154 (1) of the Constitution to the city council on Thursday, in a bid to assist the city to improve governance and unlock service delivery.

On Friday, Cogta Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa hosted the Coalition of Civil Society, which comprises Nelson Mandela Bay’s business sector, non-profit organisations, the church and others, at the Boardwalk Hotel and Convention Centre.

The engagement followed a 26 September meeting with Cogta, the municipality and the coalition, where issues related to service delivery and the exclusion of the coalition were raised.

Hlabisa said some of the problems in municipalities were due to incompetent people in the administration and political office.

“All political parties have now conceded that cadre deployment is one way of destroying all spheres of government,” said Hlabisa.

“Cadre deployment has destroyed all spheres of government; people must be deployed on the basis of being fit for purpose, from the administration to the politicians.”

As such, Hlabisa said they were working on a Bill that would require political office-bearers such as mayors and members of the mayoral committee to have an academic qualification.

“This will regulate issues of motions of no confidence and the change of leadership in municipalities, which creates instability.”

Trust deficit

The Coalition of Civil Society chair, Monga Peter, said there was a trust deficit between broader society and the city, which necessitated collaboration with those who still enjoyed trust and respect in communities.

Peter said, “This time around, the intervention must include those who don’t have any material interest in the city. If we are honest about collaboration and partnership, we need representation of civil society in the oversight arrangement of this support.

“If I had time, I would dwell much on the noble story about the 154 teams that come all the way from [the Eastern Cape capital] Bhisho to do whatever and somewhat discount the capacity you have in the municipality.

“You keep on imposing people from Bhisho as though people here are not competent. If the terms of reference of this team don’t speak to how the city can expedite the process into finally having a permanent city manager, then the support is as good as useless.”

Coalition member Neville Goldman said previous attempts to support the metro through section 154 had preceded a major election, much like the current intervention.

“It raises questions about whether political parties need money to campaign for the upcoming local government elections, or if the government is moving toward taking citizens seriously,” said Goldman.

“The strange thing about this section 154 [intervention] is that it has been three times between 2011 and 2020 under different themes, including organisational restructuring and the back to basics programme, with the third intervention led by the National Council of Provinces.”

No transparency

Goldman said while some administrative gains were made during this period, the support was unsuccessful because of political issues.

“Another trend is that there was no transparency in all these phases of intervention; we didn’t know who was in charge of anything or who to speak to if we experienced the difficulties of an unstable municipality.

“Another issue I noticed during that period was political infighting. Unless you deal with factionalism in political parties, we are always going to have a dysfunctional metro. Leadership changes, weak oversight and the exclusion of civil society and business also played a role in its failure.”T
Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber CEO Denise van Huyssteen outlined the economic and municipal issues that affected business operations in the city.

“When it comes to issues of the economy, we’ve been very vocal about our concerns, one of the major issues being the manufacturing crisis in the city,” she said.

“The reality is that if you want to keep factories operating, you need basic services to work. If you look at the latest Statistics SA report, unemployment in the Eastern Cape is the only one in the country that increased, and a lot of it was driven by manufacturing job losses in the city.”

Van Huyssteen said some manufacturers had approached the chamber, stating their struggles to keep doors open and their concern that there might be more closures.

Mayor Babalwa Lobishe said that despite lingering challenges, progress was being made to turn things around in the metro.

“It may be the fourth time of section 154, but the previous time we requested two people to assist the municipality – Lonwabo Ngoqo was brought to occupy the chief operations officer position, and Ted Pillay occupied the city manager position for a stipulated period.

“Ngoqo has since been appointed permanently in that position, and if the city manager post was vacant, we would’ve advertised it as well. In all the areas of support we requested, we have ensured to fill the vacancies.”

Stakeholder engagement

Lobishe said she would call a stakeholder engagement on 30 January to brief the coalition on the progress the municipality had made.

“We are turning the page. We know we have not done well in terms of stakeholder engagements as we thought the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) process was sufficient, but it’s clearly not.”

Hlabisa said the intervention would be closely monitored.

“The mayor will be working with the Cogta team on the plan of action. The programme of action will be developed with timeframes in alignment with the intervention plan.

“As Cogta, we would also like to be part of the January 30 meeting if things work out as per Parliament’s schedule.

“This has nothing to do with the elections, but to revive the metro to its former glory.” DM