Nelson Mandela Bay Mayor Babalwa Lobishe's year of missed deliverables

Amid criticism over deplorable service delivery in Nelson Mandela Bay since the ANC-led coalition took over, Mayor Babalwa Lobishe has defended the municipality's efforts, stating her detractors acted blindly to the progress made.

After more than a year at the helm of the city, Lobishe faces a backlash over her apparent lacklustre leadership that almost brought the city to the verge of collapse.

When Lobishe took over the mayoral chain in November 2024, she announced a list of 85 key deliverables under the "All Hands on Deck" programme that she said she would achieve in her first 100 days in office.

The list was made up of service delivery issues that Lobishe said she would ensure were resolved, and governance matters that would result in the proper functioning of the city.

Instead of achieving the targets 13 months later, Lobishe roped in national government support to help her achieve some of her service delivery goals.

The ANC (with 48 seats) under Lobishe leads an eight-party coalition with the EFF (8), NA (3), DOP (2), PAC (1), AIC (1), AIM (1) and enjoys support from the UDM (1) in the 120-seat council.

The coalition partners all form part of the mayoral committee as they head the different departments responsible for service delivery.

Some of Lobishe’s targets include the finalisation and approval of the organisational structure in line with the human resource staff regulations, the filling of senior management, and 100 critical vacancies in various levels of the municipality and approval of the overtime policy to eliminate the abuse of municipal resources.

Lobishe had promised to finalise the long outstanding matter of the suspended city manager Noxolo Nqwazi, improve capital budget spending to avoid unapproved rollovers by National Treasury and put measures in place to ensure that creditors are paid within 30 days of receipt of invoices.

She had also committed to fast-track all the supply chain management issues, improve revenue collection and resolve the leadership crisis in the unit to accelerate service delivery, and develop and approve the road map for municipal standard chart of accounts (mSCOA) compliance, among other commitments.

The mSCOA is a standardised financial system and business reform in local government, mandated by National Treasury to bring uniformity, transparency and better data quality to municipal budgeting, spending, and reporting across all financial and non-financial activities.

Leaders of the DA in the Eastern Cape held a press briefing in Gqeberha on Tuesday, highlighting Lobishe's failures based on her list of 85 deliverables, stating she only manage to fulfil eight.

Based on issues experienced in the city's various directorates, the party scored Lobishe's overall performance in her first year as mayor, a half out of five.

While, Lobishe had rated her performance four out of five.

DA caucus leader councillor Rano Kayser said the introduction of Section 154 (1) of the Constitution support was national department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs' (Cogta's) admission of the city's failure.

"The municipality is on the brink of collapse to such an extent that different spheres of government have to intervene. The 2025/26 budget was initially based on 85% revenue collection projection, but it has since been revised according to our 75% collection rate."

Kayser said capital budget spending is currently just over 12% four months into a new financial year when it should be sitting at around 25%.

"This means there's no service delivery for the vast majority of the city and no installation of new infrastructure.

"There's no overtime policy in place to curb its abuse, and although the acting city manager [Lonwabo Ngoqo] reached an agreement with the unions on the level at which overtime pay would be capped, this has not been translated into a new policy."

The budgeted overtime amount for the current financial year is R339m, with the projected increase of an additional R394m.

Kayser said a scandal is brewing regarding the mSCOA compliance as the city has outsourced the service to another entity for R360m.

"The potential service provider was given less than a month to compile documents for the advertised tender, something is wrong, what happened to supply chain processes."

Kayser said critical vacancies were not being filled as the city has not finalised the organisational structure.

The city is in the process of appointing senior managers, with Lobishe announcing at the weekend that Joseph Tsatsire had been permanently employed as the executive director for infrastructure and engineering.

Kayser said the city was filthy, and the vandalism of cemeteries and other municipal properties continued unabated.

Municipal spokesperson Sithembiso Soyaya announced the procurement of eight refuse trucks on Monday.

The city requires 38 trucks to fulfil its mandate to all communities, but currently has 16 in total. However, the service is augmented through privately owned trucks that are hired to meet the demand.

Responding to the DA statements, Lobishe said her unwavering focus was to stabilise the administration, strengthen governance and accelerate service delivery for the people of the metro.

"The recent ANC regional conference, which renewed and strengthened my mandate [by reelecting her as chair], is a clear vote of confidence in my leadership, performance and credibility within the governing coalition. This endorsement speaks far louder than the DA’s attempts to mislead the public," said Lobishe.

"While others engage in distortion, misrepresentation and public relations stunts to remain relevant, we remain committed to doing the hard work required to move our city forward."

Lobishe rubbished the tool used by the DA to rate her performance.

"Local government performance is governed by Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 of the Municipal Systems Act, supported by the Integrated Development Plan (IDP), and the Service Delivery and Budget Implementation Plan (SDBIP). These are the only legitimate instruments used to plan, measure and report on progress. We do not rely on manufactured checklists or politically motivated public commentary to determine performance."

Lobishe said comments by the DA regarding the progress of her first 100 days programme were baseless, opportunistic and wholly inaccurate.

"The DA is not the authority on municipal performance, nor does my office report to them. Their assessment is not rooted in any official oversight framework and does not reflect the governance tools that guide municipalities."

She said, as the executive mayor, she remained committed to honesty, stability and meaningful progress.

"The people of the city deserve a government focused on delivery, not noise, and that is exactly what we will continue to provide."

Lobishe said her programme that outlined the 85 targets formed part of the multiphase and long-term interventions aimed at strengthening service delivery and stabilising the municipality.

"Progress on these commitments is formally reported through council processes, not through the DA’s inaccurate and self-serving narrative.

"It is regrettable that, instead of contributing constructively to our developmental agenda, the DA continues to prioritise political theatrics and PR manoeuvres over facts. Their claims conveniently ignore the steady progress made under challenging conditions and the tangible improvements underway across various departments."

The Coalition of Civil Society chair Monga Peter would not be drawn into rating Lobishe's performance, but indicated she did not perform as expected based on Section 152 of the Constitution, which outlines what is expected of municipalities in terms of delivering services to communities.

"If you look at this legislative provision, one can’t say she outrightly performed positively because, even now, there are still electricity outages, which speaks to something that’s not being done in the city’s mandate."

Peter said the state of infrastructure speaks exactly to what is expected of a municipality, including traffic and street lights, road maintenance, functioning sewerage systems and others.

"To a certain extent, the city has a responsibility in matters of safety. This means the municipality must enforce bylaws and guard against noncompliance," Peter said.

"When it comes to grant spending, they are lagging behind and they have admitted it. This affects bulk infrastructure maintenance including the returning of grants back to the national fiscus. On the basis of this, the mayor did not perform as expected."

Peter, however, acknowledged work being done in the townships to keep them clean.

"One cannot deny the efforts made to clean the townships. They are trying their best, even if it’s through collaborations with non-profit organisations. But something is being done.

"The challenge will always be the conscience of our people who continue to litter, reversing the gains made," said Peter.

Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber CEO Denise van Huyssteen said their helpdesk, established in 2019, has rapidly evolved into a key support mechanism for local companies navigating operational obstacles due to service delivery woes.

"New data show a 370% surge in queries since its establishment. The platform, available to more than 700 member businesses, has become a vital conduit for helping to address systemic challenges that impact the ease of doing business in the metro."

Originally launched as a modest support channel, the helpdesk currently functions as a practical early warning and issue-tracking system that identifies recurring problem areas, facilitates direct escalation to relevant municipal officials, and strengthens collaboration and action between the public and private sectors.

It has received 703 queries since inception, including 193 logged in 2025 alone.

"Electricity-related issues remain the most prevalent among member companies, with 75 cases reported this year, followed by water supply challenges [36], roads and stormwater issues [22], and safety and security concerns [16]," Van Huyssteen said.

DA mayoral candidate for the Bay Retief Odendaal, who also attended the press briefing, said he has been visiting communities around the city to inform them about his plans to fix the city should the DA win the majority vote after the 2026 local government elections.

"Unfortunately, this city can't wait for the elections, likely to happen in November, to start seeing progress with basic service delivery. The people of the city should stand up and demand from the mayor the plan to fix the municipality under the ANC government."

Odendaal said Lobishe had no plan, otherwise the metro would not have forfeited R1-billion in grant funds to National Treasury over the past two financial years. DM