Abantu Integrity Movement’s founder and councillor Khusta Jack. (Photo: Deon Ferreira) At the end of March, when two motions of no confidence were brought against Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Babalwa Lobishe, veteran politician and struggle activist Khusta Jack told Lobishe, during a dramatic meeting, that he would not be defending her.
“I wanted to say a lot at that meeting, but my colleagues in the ANC persuaded me otherwise. She threatened to fire me then. But I think she forgot,” he said over the weekend.
The two motions to remove Lobishe were unsuccessful – Jack was not present during the voting.
Jack, who celebrated his 68th birthday on Sunday, discussed his reasons for resigning as the metro’s mayoral committee member for corporate services earlier in the week. He holds the only seat won by his party, Abantu Integrity Movement, in the 2021 local government elections.
Jack said he believed that “outside forces” were running Nelson Mandela Bay, and Lobishe was simply carrying out instructions. He said decisions were made without robust, in-depth and intellectual discussion of the serious issues facing the metro.
Lobishe hit back over the weekend, saying that Jack resigned as she was about to fire him for underperformance.
She said he had convened a committee to deal with the state of depots across the city to ensure that workers actually went to work, a week after he was appointed, but he failed to take that item to council; failed to take a workplace skills item to council; and failed to call a session for all councillors to deal with the municipality’s organisational structure.
She said officials in his directorate had been complaining that he did not attend the committee’s preliminary meetings, and that he was not politically driving the directorate.
“Which means what we resolve in the government of local unity doesn’t find expression in his directorate,” she said.
/file/attachments/orphans/ED_512819_542327.jpg "Nelson Mandela Bay Mayor Babalwa Lobishe. (Photo: Lulama Zenzile / Gallo Images / Die Burger)")
Jack said their coalition agreement determined that the only reason the mayor could dismiss an MMC was for underperformance. “That is why she is using this as a reason. It is bizarre – that if a person told the mayor that he has lost all confidence in her, as I did, the mayor should have fired me on the spot,” he said.
“We could not focus on anything,” he said. “She was just running around everywhere having pictures taken of herself.”
Jack said he would not deny that there were serious problems in his directorate.
But he said that the main reason she used for her threats to fire him was that she believed he was about to collapse the coalition government, something he described as “ludicrous”. Instead, he said the reason was over his firm stance that she had been wrong in agreeing to the metro controversially leasing a multimillion-rand municipal transformer to Coega Steels.
“I did tell her to her face that I would not vote for her. From that day on, she started interfacing with me more like an adversary than a colleague. Being the type of leader she is, she went on a whispering campaign behind my back, suggesting to my colleagues that by withholding my vote, I was trying to collapse the GLU (government of local unity). That, of course, was a ludicrous accusation.”
Jack said Lobishe had been avoiding putting the matter of suspended city manager Noxolo Nqwazi on the council agenda so it could be resolved.
“Instead, she has embarrassed herself with her insistence that the COO Lonwabo Ngoqo should continue to act as city manager while she has been advised that no individual may act in that position for longer than the legally stipulated period of six months, which Ngoqo has already served.”
Jack said it was an embarrassing indictment that the cooperative governance and traditional affairs department had to send an intervention team to help the municipality carry out its basic functions, such as sweeping the streets, fixing potholes and keeping traffic and streetlights working.
Coega Steels saga
Coega Steels’ transformer failed in August 2025, threatening a halt to production and putting 600 jobs at risk. Coega Steels formally requested urgent assistance from the Nelson Mandela Bay (NMB) Municipality.
On 21 August, Coega Steels addressed a letter to then acting city manager Ted Pillay, requesting a lease of a municipal transformer. It was agreed by officials that the municipality would assist, but the matter was not brought before the council at that stage.
The mayoral committee was informed about the decision to lease the transformer on 2 September. Two days later, a memorandum recommending the lease was sent to Lobishe for approval.
The lease was signed on 11 September.
However, the issue of the lease was only raised before council in October that year, with objections raised about the lack of public participation in the process.
A criminal case was opened against Pillay by Good party councillor Lawrence Troon. Later, a case would also be opened against Lobishe. Council resolved disciplinary action against Pillay and the acting executive director of electricity and energy at the time, Tholi Biyela. Both had left the institution by then.
In February, the ANC Provincial Integrity Commission (PIC) cleared Lobishe of wrongdoing.
But in April, while appearing before the parliamentary cooperative governance and traditional affairs committee, Lobishe conceded that the transformer lease had been irregular.
/file/attachments/orphans/pic_178741_981810.jpeg "Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Babalwa Lobishe was accompanied by former acting city manager Lonwabo Ngoqo, speaker Eugene Johnson, deputy mayor Gary van Niekerk, municipal public accounts committee chair Luxolo Namette and several other senior city officials during an appearance before the parliamentary cooperative governance and traditional affairs committee. (Photo: Phando Jikelo / RSA Parliament)")
Jack said he was unable to let go of the transformer issue.
He said he had lost none of his ethical beliefs since the days when he established Save SA to remove the former ANC president, now founder of the MK party, Jacob Zuma, from the presidency. This, he said, made him unable to continue to serve on Lobishe’s mayoral committee.
He is well known as an education activist, part of the South African Students Movement (SASM) and the Black Consciousness Movement in the 1970s. In the early 1980s, he played a crucial role in founding and leading the Port Elizabeth Youth Congress, part of the United Democratic Front (UDF). He also led the Consumer Boycott Campaign. In 1986, he was jailed for his role in the campaign and released only three years later.
Jack added that he would stay on for now as an ordinary councillor.
Ratepayers
Jack said ratepayers continued to hold up their side of the deal, still paying their dues to the municipality in times of economic hardship.
“A few weeks ago, the Cogta MEC (Zolile Williams) warned that the dysfunction in our municipality had gone from bad to worse and the metro faced the imminent risk of an administrative takeover by the provincial government.
“For a week in the month of May, the municipal administration was a rudderless ship without a city manager or someone acting in that position, all on Lobishe’s watch,” Jack said.
Jack said that in spite of the catastrophic governance failures, all was not lost for long-suffering metro residents.
“They will have an opportunity in November to send a strong message that they are sick and tired of bumbling political functionaries who are out of their depth in managing a metropolitan municipality.” DM