In April, the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality unveiled 20 new vehicles, saying they would boost safety and security in the metro, but now that the metro’s fuel contract has lapsed, concerns have been raised that officials will be unable to use them to respond to emergencies. (Photo / Nelson Mandela Bay municipality) On 30 April, the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality ran out of fuel after its supply contract expired — a preventable administrative failure that left the city struggling to respond to emergencies amid severe flooding and without a city manager in place.
At the time, the municipality confirmed that it had depleted its fuel reserves, bringing emergency vehicles and essential service delivery fleets across the metro to a standstill. The disaster response NGO Gift of the Givers bailed the metro out, providing R50,000 for emergency fuel.
The metro’s director of communications, Sithembiso Soyaya, had previously promised, in a written statement on behalf of Mayor Babalwa Lobishe, to keep residents of Nelson Mandela Bay updated on the progress of the fuel contract. That commitment was not fulfilled.
A question submitted by the Civil Society Coalition was also ignored: why were repeated warnings to renew the fuel contract not acted on?
The chairperson of the coalition, Monga Peter, said warnings about the fuel contract's expiration date were repeatedly raised in the metro’s Joint Operations Centre, but went unheeded. This, he said, raised serious questions about whether the metro had any regard for residents’ safety.
/file/attachments/orphans/Monga-Peter_666942.jpg "The chairperson of the Civil Society Coalition, Monga Peter. (Photo: Andisa Bonani)")
Despite promising answers to Daily Maverick for a week, Soyaya failed to deliver. We had specifically asked about the extra costs incurred by the lapsed contract and what accountability measures were being implemented.
Documented warnings reveal that the project manager for the metro’s fuel contract was alerted on 30 October and again on 31 December to renew the agreement. Yet, no action was taken until 11 March, and the renewal application was only submitted on 1 April — a mere 30 days before the contract expired. This left the metro out of time, given the legal requirement that tender invitations must be advertised for at least 30 days.
It was further confirmed that on the day the contract renewal application was filed, the project manager filed an application for an emergency deviation.
A week after the contract expired, the parliamentary Portfolio Committee for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs expressed its dismay at the metro’s contract management.
The chairperson of the committee, Dr Zweli Mkhize, noted that there were probably irregularities in several contracts, as the municipality’s documents showed that some officials were not convinced by the reasons given for the cancellation of certain procurement processes.
He said the committee would refer the matter to the National Treasury and the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs for investigation and request a report within a month.
He cautioned municipal leaders to ensure the accuracy of the information they submitted.
The committee issued a statement noting that “residents ultimately bear the cost when funds meant for service delivery are not spent because of poor planning, weak monitoring and underperformance”. DM