Nelson Mandela Bay’s ‘acting director’ saga — a leadership vacuum costing millions

The Nelson Mandela Bay metro has earned the moniker “the Hollywood of Eastern Cape municipalities”— not for its glamour, but for its revolving door of “acting directors”. This reliance on temporary appointments has left the administration hollowed out and devoid of stable leadership.

This administrative limbo comes at a steep price: over the last 29 months, the metro has spent a staggering R5.8-million on the city manager’s post alone. This figure covers the salary of the suspended city manager, Noxolo Nqwazi, while simultaneously funding acting allowances for those filling her shoes. The latest in this cycle is Lonwabo Ngoqo, the city’s COO, whose tenure as acting city manager is set to expire at the end of April.

Ngoqo was appointed to act for an additional three months on 29 January, following the expiry of his initial acting tenure, which began in October 2025 and ended in December.

Out of the metro’s eight departments, only one executive director is permanently employed: Tabiso Mfeya, who heads the human settlements directorate.

The seven other departments are headed by officials who have exceeded the six-month limit for acting appointments, which opposition councillors say is unlawful.

These departments are:

• Infrastructure and engineering;
• Electricity and energy;
• Budget and treasury;
• Corporate services;
• Economic development, tourism and agriculture;
• Safety and security; and
• Roads and transport.

In December last year, the Nelson Mandela Bay council appointed Joseph Tsatsire as the permanent executive director for infrastructure and engineering.

However, the Eastern Cape MEC for cooperative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta), Zolile Williams, did not grant concurrence, noting that the appointment was made almost a year after the post was advertised. Williams advised that the position be readvertised and filled within the prescribed time frame.

EFF national spokesperson Sinawo Thambo, who has been deployed to Nelson Mandela Bay, said the party was appalled by the reckless, wasteful and fruitless expenditure incurred by paying the “ANC-appointed” Nqwazi.

“In what can only be described as irresponsible conduct by a municipality which has failed to exercise its due diligence and responsibility, Nqwazi has drawn a salary while on suspension since 20 October 2023, due to the failure of the municipality to timeously institute the necessary disciplinary processes and procedures,” said Thambo.

‘Revolving door’

He said the delay in the disciplinary process against Nqwazi had become a financial burden, allowing for a “revolving door” of appointments in the office of the city manager.

“As a result, millions have been spent remunerating these acting city managers, while R5.8-million has been spent on the suspended Nqwazi,” he said.

“Of greater concern is that the city has reportedly lost R1.6-billion in roll-over applications from the National Treasury over the years, due to the absence of an accounting officer. This means residents are being denied funds which could improve their lives due to the lack of an active city manager to claim these funds.”

A roll-over is the process of requesting permission from the National or Provincial Treasury to move unspent conditional grant funds from one financial year to the next.

On 30 September 2025, the council appointed Ngoqo to act as city manager for three months — the 18th acting city manager in 10 years and the 16th since 2020 — with Mayor Babalwa Lobishe writing to him on the same day to confirm his appointment.

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“As per the decision made at the special council meeting held today, 30 September 2025, you are hereby appointed to act as city manager, effective as from today, 30 September 2025, until the sitting of the next Council meeting, whereat the matter regarding the appointment of the City Manager will be discussed,” reads the letter.

When Ngoqo’s initial three-month term expired in December 2025, he remained in the role throughout January despite having no formal appointment. It was not until January 29 that he was reappointed for another three months.

Opposition councillors have warned that unless this appointment is made retrospective, every decision Ngoqo made during that January gap is legally invalid, and his compensation for that period must be classified as irregular expenditure.

ACDP councillor Lance Grootboom said he has not seen any indication in council documents that Ngoqo had been appointed retrospectively, which raised sharp concerns about how he was able to act as city manager in January.

Grootboom said the failure to appoint senior managers had left the city’s administration in chaos, as governance and service delivery failures mount.

“The question I want answers to is: Why does the Cogta MEC not bring further support through the Section 145 intervention and place government officials to head the directorates until permanent appointments are made?

Precarious position

“Without the appointments, automatically there will be instability. Further chaos, which has been designed by the current coalition, is caused by the fact that the acting executive directors report to an acting city manager. The fact that the coalition has failed to appoint the executive directors permanently has placed the city in a precarious position.”

Grootboom said the delayed appointment of the senior managers perpetuated the continued unlawful acting tenures that had exceeded the permitted six-month period.

The senior managers’ vacancies were raised at the meeting of the Cogta parliamentary portfolio committee on 25 March, when a city delegation led by Lobishe had to account for delays in permanently filling the posts.

DA MP Cathlene Labuschagne asked the delegation whether the city had the capacity to deal with more than 100 flagged service delivery contracts, as the city functioned with acting directors.

“I see in your presentation that there are over 100 irregular service delivery contracts that, if they were to be stopped, the city would be at a service delivery standstill. The presentation indicates that most of the vacancies have been outstanding for two years. My concern is whether there is capacity to manage these irregular contracts,” said Labuschagne.

“My other interest is whether there have been any investigations done — if so, what was determined to be illegal and irregular, and how can it be fixed? Will service delivery be able to continue if the process to replace them commenced while there are about seven senior positions vacant?”

Service delivery

Ngoqo, who was a member of the metro’s delegation to the committee, said, “Not filling the positions has negative effects on service delivery because people in acting positions tend to not give their all when they do the work in an acting capacity.”

Ngoqo said the delays were exacerbated by the municipal staff regulations and the need to participate in the National Treasury’s Metro Trading Services Reform Programme, which aims to unlock more than R100-billion in infrastructure investment for water, sanitation, electricity and waste management in metros countrywide.

“The requirement from the National Treasury for us to participate in the [programme] is to reconfigure some of these vacant positions with the requirements of the trading services. After this has been done, the aligned posts have to be incorporated in the new organisational structure. So for us to save costs, we have to do this before we fill some of the vacancies,” said Ngoqo.

He informed MPs that the city was in the final stages of appointing senior managers for both the corporate services and the infrastructure and engineering departments.

On Tuesday, the metro’s spokesperson, Sithembiso Soyaya, stressed that the municipality’s top priority was providing continued operations and service delivery to its residents. He said acting appointments were a necessary and lawful measure to ensure this.

“While acting arrangements provide stability in the short term, they are not intended to substitute permanent appointments. Over extended periods, they may present administrative limitations relating to long-term planning, continuity of accountability, and institutional decision-making.

“For this reason, the municipality is actively prioritising the finalisation of permanent senior management appointments to further strengthen governance, enhance organisational stability and sustain service delivery performance.” DM