Who is running Nelson Mandela Bay? Metro’s city manager crisis deepens

Questions are mounting over who is actually running the Nelson Mandela Bay metro, which has been without clear municipal leadership for more than a week amid an escalating standoff over the reinstatement of suspended city manager Dr Noxolo Nqwazi.

The uncertainty comes as metro leaders have not implemented a directive issued by Eastern Cape MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Zolile Williams, who this week said Nqwazi must resume her duties following the lapse of her suspension.

Speaking before Parliament’s Cogta committee on Wednesday, acting corporate services executive director Yolanda Dakuse revealed that Nqwazi had earned R6.7-million in salary over the past two years while on suspension.

The prolonged suspension has effectively resulted in a revolving door of acting city managers, with no stable incumbent in place to permanently fill the post.

City managers are the most senior administrative officials in municipalities, responsible for running the day-to-day operations of a metro and ensuring that council decisions are implemented.

Williams issued his directive on 5 May 2026, to mayor Babalwa Lobishe and council speaker Eugene Johnson, instructing that Nqwazi be reinstated.

The metro, however, appears to be resisting that instruction.

In his directive, Williams stated that “in the circumstances, the municipality is advised to accept that the precautionary suspension of Dr Nqwazi has lapsed and she must be permitted to resume her duties.”

“The municipality may still continue with the disciplinary hearing, but there are no legal grounds to continue with the precautionary suspension,” reads the letter.

The instruction from Williams followed a demand from Nqwazi’s lawyers, Meyer Inc, dated 29 April, insisting that she be reinstated by 1 May.

“At the initial sittings of the disciplinary hearing, before the commencement of the said disciplinary hearing, our client raised various points, and the disciplinary sitting was eventually postponed in order for our client to get copies of the requested documentation she sought to prepare for the disciplinary hearing,” reads the letter.

“To date, no documents as requested were received by our client from the municipality, whilst our client remains on suspension in excess of two years pending the commencement of the disciplinary hearing.”

REINSTATEMENT ORDER

Cogta rules NMB city manager suspension unlawful as metro faces leadership vacuum

May 5, 2026

The legal standoff has added to administrative uncertainty in the metro, which has relied on a series of acting city managers since Nqwazi was suspended.

Advocate Lonwabo Ngoqo was appointed to act as city manager for three months on 30 September 2025. His acting term lapsed in December, but he continued until January 2026, when Williams granted the municipality permission for him to serve a further three months. His contract ended at the end of April.

Part of the municipality’s response to Williams includes a letter from its attorneys, Karsans Inc, dated 30 April 2026, which maintains that Nqwazi remains suspended.

The letter states: “...your client’s tender to resume duties on 1 May cannot be accepted, as the suspension remains in place pending the finalisation of the disciplinary process.”

Appearing before the parliamentary Cogta committee, Lobishe confirmed that Nqwazi had not yet returned to work when asked by DA MP Marina van Zyl.

Van Zyl told Daily Maverick: “The metro’s crisis is entirely man-made and residents are paying the price for administrative incompetence.”

She added: “In the process, millions of rands in public money have reportedly been wasted, while residents are left dealing with sewage spills, electricity failures, collapsing infrastructure and ongoing service delivery failures.

“Under Mayor Lobishe’s leadership, the metro has lurched between acting municipal managers and even found itself without a municipal manager because the concurrence process was bungled. This is governance through chaos.

“While the ANC cannot get its house in order, the people of Nelson Mandela Bay are the ones suffering the consequences every single day.”

Lobishe told the committee the municipality had responded to Williams on 5 May, outlining internal processes and declined to elaborate further on Nqwazi’s case.

Confusion over leadership deepened during the hearing when committee chairperson Dr Zweli Mkhize questioned who was now acting as city manager.

Lobishe said she had appointed Ngoqo as acting city manager after chief financial officer Jackson Ngcelwane shot down an offer to act as city manager for a period of 14 days.

Lobishe later conceded to Mkhize that she was at fault and did not have the authority to make a unilateral appointment without receiving council approval.

Mkhize referred to far-reaching and deeply entrenched confusion within the municipality, revealing an internal circular for two clerical assistant positions in traffic and licensing services that was seemingly approved by Ngcelwane, and that listed him as acting city manager on 5 May.

Ngcelwane, taken aback, told the committee he was unaware he had been listed as acting city manager in internal communications and became aware of it only while appearing before the committee.

“Whilst I was sitting here, I was communicated the same circular, which I do not know how my name got to be on an internal circular and naming myself as an acting city manager.

“I immediately messaged my colleague, who is the acting executive director for corporate services. That has resulted in a groupwise issued by corporate services reversing all communications that they must have issued either the day before yesterday, and yesterday. So there is a correction groupwise here that has been issued.”

Mkhize said the situation reflected deep administrative instability.

“The issue is that you have a circular out there that is actually signed by Mr Ngcelwane as acting city manager. Mr Ngcelwane told us he denounced the position and never accepted it from the start. That creates an issue where we have an unusual situation where there is a period during which there is not an acting city manager,” Mkhize said.

Mkhize added: “There will be huge confusion about the authority and the decision-making processes in the municipality as a result of this issue.

“We were initially raising it at a theoretical level. We did not pursue it. We now have proof of what we have been fearing.”

He said Williams should urgently obtain a legal opinion on the implications of what he described as a “lacuna” in municipal leadership.

“The committee believes that the MEC should be the one who takes action. The additional issue is for the MEC to get a legal opinion about the implications of the lacuna where there is no official incumbent in the position of acting city manager,” Mkhize said.

Van Zyl said the issue of circulars listing Ngcelwane as acting city manager amounted to fraud and could not be “glanced over”.

She said: “I will have to go to [Cape Town Central Police Station] to make another case. This leadership here, excluding the CFO [Ngcelwane], they need to tell us because someone had to go ‘copy, paste’. Who is that someone? We need that name. Because it is fraudulent. It is criminal. It is not something we can glance over. We need to know.”

MK Party MP Jeffrey Mtolo has called for urgent clarity on financial authority within the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, warning that key decisions may have been made during a period he described as an administrative vacuum.

Mtolo said the committee had to be informed about who had signatory powers over municipal bank accounts while uncertainty persisted over senior leadership in the metro.

“On a serious note, it will be important that as this committee, we are made aware of the signatories of the bank accounts of the municipality while there is this problem and get a report on the decisions taken after council sat and resolved that [the] CFO should act,” he said.

He said the committee should also be briefed on all financial transactions and administrative decisions taken after the council resolved that the chief financial officer should assume acting responsibility, arguing that the period required scrutiny.

“So during that period – decisions taken and transactions that were effected during that period. It might happen that a lot of things happened during that period,” Mtolo said. DM